Danze Ferdinand (Blood Review)

Blood iz Dub, and good Dub at that. Now, I love pretty much the entire body of Franz Ferdinand’s work, they’ve been consistenly good over three strong albums that have each held some amazing tracks. The most recent, Tonight, is already one of my favourites of this year, as soon as i heard about this dub version, I was intrigued and a little confused. Could anyone seriously make a dub version of Franz and it still be good? The answer most definitely is yes.

Now, for those who had the special edition of Tonight, you will probably already have heard/dismissed this spin-off release. Well it is getting it’s separate release with an extra track too. It’s proper good though, I’ve been listening to the tracks almost constantly, I just feel that this is, as well as a great addition to what the Franz have already done, it’s almost the necessary accompaniment to the album, I’m not surprised that they’ve decided to release it separately as it is indeed pure brilliance. Franz Ferdinand songs are oddly enough suited to the reworks.

Tracks like “Die on the Floor”, which is a re-working of “Can’t Stop Feeling” grinds along to the dub infused beat, it’s guitar parts perfectly suited and just work well to enhance the original tune. My personal favourite so far, has to be “If I Can’t Have You The Nobody Can” (Turn It On), the echoing ‘It ain’t eaaasy being blues…’ line is a part especially good, the whole rework is literally like disassembling the song and drifting in and out of it while putting it back together. Madness, it sounds, but it just works. There’s also the reworked intro to “Send Him Away”, here titled, “Feel The Envy”, which is too dub, the intro ahh, its just so great.

This album, brought a smile to my face, figuring out which songs were what and all that was good, it’s like a timely release, being a retrospective upon the album and probably, (hopefully) reminding people that Franz Ferdinand are still on form.

Die on the Floor
Feel The Envy