Phoenix – Alpha Zulu
Movements come and go but Phoenix still bang, even with their lesser works
Gleaming and resplendent, contoured and finessed, another Gallic artwork that has graced the halls of the Louvre is on display. No, it’s not some Renaissance portraiture, but another album from French sons Phoenix, with a Botticelli gracing its cover and actually birthed from the pandemic-induced emptiness of the Musée des Arts Décoratifs.
Alpha Zulu is everything a Phoenix album has been already: slick, silly, maximalist. Their music can still conjure exhilaration, and there’s definitely a song they can top and tail a show with – an afterlife where even their more forgettable tunes go to thrive. They mine nostalgia for call-backs (Tonight); find comedy in impending doom (Alpha Zulu). But the boys are ageing and, separated initially by lockdown, an emotional core burned a hole in the centre of this new record instead of a six-minute space-bound instrumental. Winter Solstice is that centrepiece, finding Thomas Mars vulnerably unadorned – 'Turn the lights on, find me a narrative, something positive / This Requiem played a few times before / I heard it once, so I'm not sure' – a distant, muffled bass pulse calling to him for connection.
Phoenix are now an artefact. Movements come and go but the old masters who once made classics still bang, even with their lesser works.
Listen to: The Only One, Winter Solstice, All Eyes On Me