New Release of the Week: Franz Ferdinand – The Human Fear
The first big new release of 2025 is Franz Ferdinand’s latest.
Produced with Mark Ralph, who previously worked with them on their 2013 album ‘Right Thoughts, Right Words, Right Action’, the album showcases Franz at their most immediate, upbeat and life-affirming, unashamedly going for the pop-jugular in classic Franz style.
Recorded at AYR studios in Scotland, the 11 songs on ‘The Human Fear’ all allude to some deep-set human fears and how overcoming and accepting these fears drives and defines our lives.
The first studio album to feature members Audrey Tait and Dino Bardot, the record also sees Julian Corrie step forward to collaborate with Alex Kapranos and Bob Hardy on song writing and creative duties.
A band for whom the aesthetic and style is almost as important as the sound, as ever the importance of this is reflected in the cover artwork which was inspired by Hungarian artist Dóra Maurer’s self-portrait ‘7 Twists’.
Sound Pick: Neil Young – On the Beach
The 50th anniversary reissue of this album snuck out at the tail-end of 2024, but is worth still highlighting as it’s one of Young’s greatest releases.
Sparse, weary, and at times downright dour, ‘On the Beach’ was Neil Young’s first studio album after ‘Harvest’ had transformed him into a mainstream superstar two years before.
It was a career move akin to driving off the main road and into a ditch, which was where Young said he felt more comfortable.
Young had already recorded the harrowing ‘Tonight’s the Night’, his indictment of 1960s’ drug culture and the damage done, but his label rejected it as too abrasive.
So the artist gave them this instead. Less mournful but still haunting, the album is basically Young’s rejection of rock stardom and what had become of the counterculture by 1974.
Neil Young – On the Beach (N/A)