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Franz Ferdinand: The Human Fear review – stiffness sets in on stodgy sixth

Alex Kapranos and co are finally acting their age, but have lost their cool in the process

For the most part, British indie-mania of the 00s involved a slew of sixth-form poets holding forth over amateurishly jerky guitars: the results were often simultaneously brilliant and deeply cringeworthy. Despite opener Audacious kicking off with Kapranos muttering about the disintegration of reality over a pleasingly grainy riff, the song then slows into the kind of sweeping, plodding chorus you could imagine Take That crooning on a teatime chatshow. Other songs (Bar Lonely, Tell Me I Should Stay) channel 70s glam to pleasant but unremarkable ends, while a track called The Doctor – told from the perspective of a man unwilling to vacate his hospital bed (“I have nurses to talk to … and thermometers to hold”) – doesn’t exactly telegraph vitality.

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