Franz Ferdinand's third album

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This article contains information about a scheduled or expected future album. The content may change as the album release approaches and more information becomes available.

Franz Ferdinand are currently working on their third album to be released sometime in 2009.

[edit] History

According to NME in 2005, the band had no intentions to stop and continued to record at a relentless pace.^[1] It was actually in January of 2006 when the band began new recording sessions, coinciding with some dates in Australia and New Zealand: "Then we’ll see how many songs we’ve got together but we’re talking about going into the studio at the end of January." Kapranos explained. "We’re popping over to Australia and New Zealand at the end of January as well, as you do. It’s brilliant, I’m looking forward to that. We get to miss the Scottish winter, which is not a bad thing at all."^[2]

An image that appeared for some time on the band's homepage and it's speculated that it will be the name of the new album.

The band revealed in early September 2006 that they were going to take a break after headlining the Carling Weekend^[3] and playing two shows in Brazil.

As of March 8, 2007, the band finally began meeting to work on their third album and March 13, 2007, Alex Kapranos and Nick McCarthy spoke exclusively to Xfm about their next album. Alex had this to say regarding the next album.

"Nick and I are writing some more tunes. We’ve got a wee place in Glasgow where we’re doing some new songs. Its a wee bit different from last stuff but still very danceable, that’s the main thing. It’s always pop. Franz Ferdinand has always been pop".^[4]

On February 14, 2007, Bonnaroo released the initial 2007 lineup, which included Franz Ferdinand, the two confirmed that this would be the only festival they'll perform in that year, despite initial plans to not perform live at all that year. In the same interview held with XFM discussing the next album, Alex said this to XFM.

"We’re gonna play Bonnaroo [in the US alongside The Police, White Stripes and Flaming Lips], but no British festivals. We don’t really want to play any British festivals until we’ve written a bunch of new songs for people to hear. I don’t really see the point of keeping on going out and playing the same old stuff again and again. You wanna come back with something exciting".^[5]

Despite what he said, on September 22nd Franz Ferdinand actually not only played a UK festival, they headlined at Loopallu, a festival which at the time was in its third year, held in the village of Ullapool in the north west Highlands. They played a mix of old and new tracks in a tent by the side of Loch Broom.

It was in December, 2006 that the actual band members took control of their own MySpace page, they used it as an advantage to upload video updates and on March 26, 2007, a video of them recording an instrumental song dubbed Flight of the Galvatron was uploaded. On May 9, 2007, Alex updated the band's MySpace blog with brief mentions of two songs, entitled A New Thrill and English Goodbye. Alex clarifies, "The latter is about the expression 'saying an English goodbye', not a call for Scottish independence." The band actually debuted the two songs in Spring 2007 in a live show in Glasgow. In addition, they played "Favourite Lie", "Turn It On", and "Anyone In Love". On May 30, 2007, Rock'n Coke Festival in Istanbul released the lineup, which included Franz Ferdinand.

Alex Kapranos once again updated the bands MySpace blog to inform that at the Hey You Get Off My Pavement show, that they were playing in front of Glasgow's Mono featured three brand new songs. Their working titles were "Live Alone," "Kathrine Kiss Me," and "Ulysses."

At The Edinburgh International Film Festival on August 15, 2007, (the premiere of the movie Hallam Foe) Nick and Alex performed a short acoustic set. They performed a new song entitled "Kathrine Kiss Me" along with "Hallam Foe, Dandelion Blow" and crowd favorites, "Dark of the Matinee" and "Jacqueline."

In late August 2007, the Official Site was simply a black background with "Not Yet" in grey letters at the bottom right. This has prompted plenty of speculation that the third album would be coming soon and some also believed that "Not Yet" may indeed have turned out to be the title of the third album, however as of October 22nd, FranzFerdinand.co.uk took off the words Not Yet and featured instead an image of the band against a brick wall in black and white. The website was still titled "Not Yet".

On November 24, drummer Paul Thomson was featured in the NME as he was at the Hauser and Wirth. He spoke of a song from the next album called "Ulysses" and comfirmed that it featured a collaboration from Anri Sala. Paul said, "I liked the idea that the song wasn't out yet, and that it's being taken apart and put back together again by someone who hasn't even heard the original. It will be on the album and may well be a single too, maybe as multiple B-sides... We've recorded a couple of songs with different producers. We're doing a song at a time. Hopefully we'll start recording around December and get it out before the summer. The last album was very much a well-oiled live unit going in and writing a record. This time we've had a chance to reconvene after having six months off and learnt to play our instruments a bit differently."^[6]

The next day Alex Kapranos was interviewed by the Daily Record where he spoke more about the next album. "We've been recording a couple of songs in the last two weeks. We'll keep on recording until Christmas and will have the album out in the new year. The strangest instrument we've been using is an old Russian synthesiser built from spare parts in the Cold War. This guy couldn't get synthesisers in Russia but heard about them and decided to build one from what he heard they were like. He used whatever components he could get hold of. It sounds like a normal synthesiser, only a lot weirder."^[7][8]

No title has been announced by the band yet, but rumors say the new album is possibly going to be called "Favourite Lie". The first single is reportedly "What She Came For". [1]

On the 2nd of April the band played Admiral Bar in Glasgow. Their set was composed of only new songs. Lucid (or Loose) Dreams, What She Came For, Ride Together and Bite Hard were all given debut playings and Send Him Away, Ulysses, Girls You'll Never Know and A New Thrill were resurrected (the latter given a reworking).

On June 6, 2008 the band's website was restored complete with new pictures of the band's rehearsal space as well as clips of songs from the forthcoming album.

The restored website also contains a page with a sketch of all for members with the title 'Indissoluble Matrimony by Alex, Nick, Bob and Paul' possible the title of the as yet unnamed record.

The band then recently announced that the album may not be released until 2009 due to the fact the band still had "Quite a bit of Mixing to Do". [2]

[edit] Sound

On March 13th, 2007, Alex Kapranos and Nick McCarthy spoke exclusively to XFM about their next album. Alex explains that "Nick and I are writing some more tunes. We’ve got a wee place in Glasgow where we’re doing some new songs. Its a wee bit different from last stuff but still very danceable, that’s the main thing. It’s always pop. Franz Ferdinand has always been pop."

Judging by the new songs played and heard live, Franz Ferdinand currently has a more noticeable synth-based sound. This is synth based sound is confirmed in a Billboard interview. They also state they are thinking of making a 'dirty' pop record. They are shooting for a summer release. [3]

[edit] Possible tracks

The band has played fifteen new songs live since the release of You Could Have It So Much Better. They've also released several songs on compilations and movies which may appear on the album.

Among the songs mentioned below is "Can't Stop Feeling". The track was first recorded as a demo in "the Château" during 2003. The demo of the song is available for download at Franz Ferdinand dot Net.

[edit] Unreleased songs played live:

• "English Goodbye"
• "A New Thrill"
• "Favourite Lie"
• "Turn It On" (A video of the song's live performance is available on their MySpace.)
• "Anyone In Love"
• "Live Alone"
• "Katherine Kiss Me" (According to NME this song no longer mentions "Kate" and will have a new title, according to a Myspace blog by the writer of the A-Z of Franz Ferdinand, this title will be Girls, You'll Never Know)
• "Ulysses"
• "Flight of the Galvatron"
• "Can't Stop Feeling"
• "Can’t You Let Me Stay Tonight" (Now called "Send Him Away") [4]
• "What She Came For (Favourite Lie)" (Confirmed in an interview that it will be on the album)
• "Ride Together"
• "Lucid Dreams"
• "Bite Hard"

[edit] Released new songs (unlikely to appear on album):

• "Hallam Foe, Dandelion Blow"
• "All My Friends" (LCD Soundsystem cover)
• "Jackie Jackson"
• "Swallow, Smile"
• "No"
• Sound and Vision (David Bowie)

[edit] New songs not yet released nor played live

• "Twilight Omens"
• "A Severed Head"
• "Dream Again"

[edit] Clips of songs on the official website

• "Blessing"
• "Tradition"
• "Trigger 7"
• "Trigger 8"
• "Turn It On"
• "Ulysses" (This is just Alex singing vocals over the phone, complete with answerphone)

[edit] References