Review “Alpha Zulu”
The new Phoenix album is a journey through time – and it’s very welcome right now
With the Louvre behind you, art in your head and heart: Christian Mazzalai, Thomas Mars, Laurent Brancowitz, Deck D’Arcy (from left) from Phoenix
© Shez
French indie pop band Phoenix release their new album today. “Alpha Zulu” is melancholic and light-footed as usual. Classic Phoenix sound. The time can be crazy while listening. Singing paintings do the rest.
This album is like reuniting with old friends that you haven’t seen in far too long. It’s called “Alpha Zulu” and it’s like friends: they’ve changed, but not too much and that familiarity is there again straight away. Actually everything is the same. This also applies to the new Phoenix album. It feels a little more electronic, but there’s immediately that familiar melancholy carried by light-footed indie pop. Old friends, these are also the four members of Phoenix. They have known each other since their school days in Versailles.
The new Phoenix album invites you to ponder
“Alpha Zulu” is like a journey back in time to 2009, into the leaking heart and the nights of dancing all night long, when the Phoenix album “Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix” with the hits “Lisztomania” and “1901” came out. Other albums followed, but this remains the band’s most formative, pop-culturally – and quite individually.
It was the soundtrack of the first semesters, of evenings in shared kitchens. And as images and feelings from that time begin to rush through mind and heart, another familiar voice emerges on the new album. “Tonight” features Vampire Weekend lead singer Ezra Koenig, whose first album was also a regular at the shared kitchens back then.
In the video for “Tonight”, Phoenix singers Thomas Mars and Koenig are traveling in Paris and Tokyo, the scenes are cut side by side. The aesthetics and the song suggest a lightness, something cosmopolitan, relaxed and laconic that seems almost out of date. That’s exactly why it comes at the right time. It is an invitation to reflect on the past and transience, relationships and loneliness in the midst of this insane world event “Lost in translation”.
“Alpha Zulu” was created in the museum
The past and timelessness also come into focus because the album is shaped by art. “Alpha Zulu” was created in the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, the decorative arts museum in a side wing of the Louvre in Paris. Must have been very inspiring – everything was done in just ten days. According to the press release, the band was fascinated by the idea of creating something out of nothing within a museum. The band was inspired, among other things, by the famous scene in Jean-Luc Godard’s film “Bande à part”, in which the protagonists sprint through the Louvre.
In the video for “Alpha Zulu” the art comes to life. The faces in the paintings sing. It’s comforting to see paintings freshly interpreted these days, rather than under a layer of mush.
To the friendship
Phoenix end their new album with a tribute to their favorite producer Philippe Zdar, who passed away three years ago. It’s called “Identical” and there is so much love and energy in this song, which keeps getting better and more intense as it progresses, that you immediately want to dance the day away with your friends and dance the night away.
“I’m no prophet, I’m your friend, take my advice, make your mistakes,” sings Thomas Mars. “Make your mistakes”, with this line he dismisses the listener from the new Phoenix album. She knows there will be a few more to come in life. But that’s okay, thanks to friends.