Franz Ferdinand – Ulysses

First thoughts? Where’s Alex obtained that American accent from?, followed by oh, this a wee bit different. But its not. The accent returns to normal by the start of the first verse proper and at the same time we’re back in recognisable Franz territory, albeit with the addition of some Late Of The Pier-esque grubby synth sound (obviously not theirs but no earlier proponents of it spring to mind).

You can just imagine the boys stamping around the studio, video set or stage to their trademark martial beat as we’ve seen many times before. I think it’s got something to do with taking drugs, having a bit of a wander about like the titular Greek chap and finding a new way to either get high, have sex or just wander. Or maybe being kept somewhere against one’s will.

By no stretch of the imagination is this a classic Franz track and if it’s the best available for a first single from the third album then they could well be heading for trouble. There’s a Radio Edit and an Original Version available it seems but what difference the extra seven seconds on the second one actually contains is beyond me. No doubt it’ll come out on a cunning cd1 and cd2 package (whomever invented that idea really needs sorting out) so you can if you wish ponder the difference yourselves…