Average Metacritic score is 82 (33 reviews):
by Phoenix
Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix (Glass Note)
Release Date: May 26
Metacritic Ranking: 85
Pitchfork: 8.5
http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/130 ... s-phoenix/[Glassnote / Loyauté; 2009]
8.5
Much of the album's internal conflict is laid out in its first couple lines. "So sentimental; not sentimental, no!/ Romantic; not disgusting yet," sings frontman Thomas Mars on opener "Lisztomania", sounding like a madman with two tiny creatures whispering into each ear. Mars keeps this treacherous divide in mind throughout Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix, and the rest of the record successfully avoids mush while keeping its beating heart intact. And the issue of thematic directness is especially important to Phoenix-- this is an established indie band writing songs about love that are armed with hooks primed for a mainstream embrace. Just listen to the invincible crescendo of Wolfgang's "Countdown"-- especially that little Coldplay-esque piano twinkle about three and a half minutes in-- and realize that these guys are a few Chris Martin-isms away from staggering ubiquity. They're a bona fide "should be bigger" band.
But, as their songs tighten into increasingly effective bursts of pop, Mars is breaking up his words and meanings into smaller and smaller fragments. His isn't a self-congratulatory, indie-nerd triumph, though, i.e., Mars isn't being cryptic to be an asshole. He's getting better and more sophisticated as his band discards anything-- an outro, a bridge, an extra hi-hat hit-- that could be deemed superfluous. Sure: YouTube tells us this album will make a generation-spanning touchstone like The Breakfast Club that much better. It'll also hit your gut if you listen hard enough. There are layers here-- maybe too many layers for the biggest rooms.
"I feel too young," went the hook on Phoenix's innocent and bittersweet 2000 debut single. Back then, the quartet was following a wave of Gallic cool led by friends Daft Punk and Air. Nearly 10 years on and this casually chic group has grown into something unique-- Wolfgang isn't a tweaked Air record or a tweaked Strokes record as much as it's a Phoenix record. Gone is the sometimes-flimsy blue-eyed soul of their first two LPs, replaced with a glossier take on the uptick guitars and sampled snare snaps of 2006's brilliant It's Never Been Like That. And they're not feeling so young anymore, either. "Do you remember when 21 years was old?" muses Mars on "Countdown". Growing up, looking back, and peeking ahead usually isn't this enjoyable.
Its unflappable sonic sheen gives Wolfgang some winsome 80s nostalgia, but smart modern touches-- a constant near-Auto-Tune vocal effect, Justice-lite keyboard stabs on "1901"-- ensure its of-the-moment-ness. Meanwhile, Mars hints at a time and space where he's everywhere-- or nowhere-- all at once. "Acres/ Visible horizon/ Right where it starts and ends/ When did we start the end?" he wonders aloud at the end of the krautrocking epic "Love Is a Sunset", just after the song has blasted into a stratosphere where a diminishing horizon line is the only clear thing in sight. "Rome" likens a collapsing relationship to a collapsed empire; "2000 years remain in a trash can." And, on "Countdown", Mars' ennui reaches its peak as he sings, "True and everlasting didn't last that long." But he's not sad-sacking along, head down, no umbrella. He's pumped. Excited. With the band going full-bore behind him, he concludes the most ebullient song about existential inevitability in recent memory with an impassioned rallying cry: "We're the lonesome! We're the lonesome!" All together now.
At another point in Lisztomania, Roger Daltrey's entire body is sucked into a devilish princess' underthings. (Seriously.) Before that happens, though, the cigar-chomping heiress quotes Oscar Wilde while explaining her unladylike smoking habit, "It's the perfect form of pleasure, it's exquisite and leaves one unsatisfied. What more can one ask?" Phoenix seem to understand this line of thinking-- and not just because they look like a group of guys who know their Gauloises. They're pleasure-pushers, filling tunes with riffs, phrases, and beats a five-year-old could love. But, on Wolfgang, those same songs are unfulfilled-- and this band wouldn't have it any other way. There's beauty in a sunset. Phoenix are wringing it out.
— Ryan Dombal, May 27, 2009
