Listen: Walk Away / Franz Ferdinand
Walk

Just this past week, BBC Radio 4 had a second series whereby Joan Armatrading spoke to various guitarists about their style and technique. In fact, they’re all still archived for another few days. Being vastly accomplished herself, it of course led to nice conversation with a wide variety of others like Baaba Maal and Richard Thompson.

The first of those in this week’s rundown was the fellow from Franz Ferdinand, Alex Kapranos. Funny thing, one of their most inviting song’s for Joan, ‘Take Me Out’, was probably my most despised track of that period and the specific moment she liked best highlighted the exact reason I never had interest in the band. That being when they kind of change tempo mid song and all play in unison, each extending their left leg, or maybe right, and kicking out the beat together. Makes my skin crawl.

So it was a great surprise to me that the followup album, their second, included a song, ‘Walk Away’, that I just took to in a big way. Very reminiscent of The Kinks’ SLEEPWALKER or MISFITS period, the vocals were quite similar to Ray Davies, minus the obvious mimic that other bands purposely do. Made me a bit of a fan, and have now suddenly wondered what ever happened to them.