On their new album, Phoenix have sharpened their pop songwriting to a fine point.  Though it sonically resembles their last album, 2006’s It’s Never Been Like That, their latest, the boldly titled Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix, is a more streamlined version of their classic keyboard and guitar pop.  Whereas something like the last album’s “Long Distance Call” had a rambling, loose-limbed charm to it, Wolfgang… has tracks as terse and tight as “1901″ propelling it forward at warp-speed into the stratosphere.  It’s a song free from superfluous excesses as says what it has to say in it’s 3:45 long and then gets out of the way.  Even when they decide to put the music under the microscope and experiment with “Love Like A Sunset” (a song in two parts), it feels like they know exactly where they’re heading from start to finish, and are just enjoying the breeze in their hair and the scenerey along the way.

The band reports that they had to work at finding their groove for this album, and had many false starts before hitting the mark with Philip Zdar of Cassius in his own studio in Montmartre.  And groove they do.  “Fences” is a soul-filled  number that’s adorned with glistening keyboard washes and acoustic guitar;  It’s not the right comparison, and it may just turn people off if I say it, but for some reason I hear “Paradise By the Dashboard Light” on “Rome”;  It’s an epic, tragic love song without reverting to histrionics and campiness, sort of a distillation of the best essence of that Meatloaf track.  Ed Droste of Grizzly Bear really loves “Armistice”, the album’s closing track, and with good reason.  It’s probably the darkest and fiercest I’ve ever heard Phoenix, and may be a sign post as to where these good natured Parisians are heading to next.

Giant leap forward it is not, but Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix very much embodies the spirit of its namesake; classic tunes, mad genius musicianship, and a singular vision that makes it distinctly Phoenix.

MP3: Phoenix “Lisztomania”
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