Warning: Even limited exposure to this French band's music is liable to turn the listener into a crazed zealot desperate to "just turn people on" to their music or to wander about aimlessly wondering aloud why they're not at least as well known as, say, Erlend Oye. The band's been relentlessly eclectic since they formed in the late '90s; they make hybrid music, an electronic-flavored rock that's impossible to describe without using up half a dozen hyphens in the process. It's their most straight-ahead, "rock"-sounding release, and if your first thought is that it wouldn't hurt if It's Never Been Like That had a little bit more of a cocaine disco unicorn vibe to it, give it another listen. This record is an effortless-sounding, mini-masterpiece that mixes art song elements with delightful retro-pop. And it's scary how simply and truly great it is--easily amongst the best albums of 2006. --Mike McGonigal
Japanese pressing of 2006 album adds the bonus track 'Diet Of The Heart'. Virgin.
Phoenix
It's Never Been Like That
[Astralwerks; 2006]
Rating: 8.0
Maybe it's the French heritage, or their collaborations with new-age dabblers Air, but Phoenix has proven itself a band in touch enough with its feminine side to embrace the dulcet tones and oxymoronic world of soft rock. With production as crisp as a Frito and singer Thomas Mars' mercury croon, the group has assembled two brilliant singles ("If I Ever Feel Better" and "Everything Is Everything") that could slot into the playlists of hipsters and receptionists alike. Yet Phoenix haven't quite been able to stretch their minty-fresh sound over the length of an album, with too much of both Alphabetical and United floating off into the atmosphere.
The approach of It's Never Been Like That reflects an awareness of this shortcoming, as the band seeks a more consistent sound through mimicking the sloppier styles of those uncouth Americans-- in particular the Strokes. Loosening their ties and unbuttoning their cuffs, Phoenix put on their best slouch, slathering the album with messy, naturalistic guitar playing completely at odds with their usual robotic aesthetic. This earnest attempt at a costume change fails...but at the same time creates the uncomfortable dynamic that makes it Phoenix's best album.
For all the effort made to un-slick their sound, Phoenix just can't keep their OCD meticulousness at bay, utilizing all that slapdash guitar as a cued sonic preset no different from familiar tools like the string-synth and disco-bass. Maybe that modular usage sounds like a bad thing, but instead the interplay between lazy strumming and everything-in-its-right-place arrangements effectively rewrites the history of the garage-rock revival, drawing a line between "Last Nite" and Tom Petty and erasing the denial that "Maps" was the biggest song that scene's brief heyday produced. The tools in "Consolation Prizes" and "Second to None" may be the same, but replacing studied ennui with a breezy joie de vivre prevents the pop essence from being overly diluted by rumpled poses.
Here the band improves on its usual success rate by depositing not one, but two showstopper tracks. "Long Distance Call" embodies the disconnect between shamble and sheen better than anything else on the album, with the band alternately stomping the gas and the brake to lurch between their easy-listening older material and the happily polluted new image. "Courtesy Laughs" highlights the record's second half with a simple chord progression made transcendent by its metronome rhythm. Both tracks still could have remained middle-quartile indie pop without the carefully calibrated cool of Mars' vocals, operating at conversation-level volume and casually, smoothly hitting his marks without protracted strain even when enthusiastically incanting the album's title.
At under 40 minutes long, It's Never Been Like That is pretty much a sprint, though even at this short distance the band starts to sound a bit dehydrated on both five-minute instrumental "North" and the over-long "Sometimes in a Fall". But through most of the record, Phoenix marks out their territory in the sparsely-attended arena of new soft-rock and demonstrating the genre's compatibility with indie tropes. Dentists sick of REO Speedwagon ballads send their sincere thanks.
-Rob Mitchum, May 24, 2006
Review by Rob Theakston
After avoiding the sophomore slump with relative ease, Phoenix return with their third release stripped of the post-disco house sound that helped to define them, focusing more on the songwriting side of things than any sort of dancefloor-focused groove. In fact, it takes until the fourth song, "Long Distance Call," for anything resembling a dancefloor beat to appear, and when it does it feels like an epilogue to the wonderful "If I Ever Feel Better" off the group's debut record. The band has definitely learned a thing or two through its evolution, placing more of an emphasis on guitar than before (Laurent Brancowitz and Christian Mazzalai sound as if they've been in the woodshed studying the chops of Johnny Marr and the twin-guitar attack of the Strokes' last few records), and their performances sound more confident than ever. Gone are the sluggish country-infused downtempo numbers, replaced with a more even-keeled track sequencing and tempo throughout -- almost as if they've been able to focus on the things that make the band so engaging to begin with, monopolize on them, and move forward in a refreshing and vibrant direction.
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