Franz Ferdinand

Like the Strokes and the Rapture before them, these well-dressed Scots make an effortlessly stylish sound. On their buzzed-about debut they underpin scratchy guitar fuzz with insistent disco beats and body-rocking bass lines, while singer Alex Kapranos oozes the sophisticated, world-weary charm of a young man who’s been to too many parties for too many nights in a row. (Yes, that’s right: It’s the musical equivalent of a Friendster profile, only with cuter accents.) But as with their Stateside peers, Franz Ferdinand pairs those trendy sonics with actual songs–wry, knowing ones about workplace ennui (“Jacqueline”), magical ladies (“Tell Her Tonight”), last-resort infidelity (“Cheating on You”), dancefloor homoeroticism (“Michael”) and, OK, getting fashionably shitfaced in public (take your pick). In “Take Me Out” the band presents a pulsing groove it’s unlikely the Strokes haven’t already written; producer Tore Johansson even has Kapranos sing through one of those filters that make him sound like he’s blabbering into the pay phone downstairs. But then, barely a minute in, they slow the groove down by half and unload the year’s biggest funk-rock epiphany: Unexpectedly slow is the new fast! Your move, New York.