Album Review: Phoenix - Bankrupt!

There isn't a moment's silence before the high-pitched keyboard sounds of Entertainment kick off Phoenix's Bankrupt! The album comes some four years after the critically acclaimed and frankly brilliant, Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix and the immediacy of Entertainment heralds the Phoenix known and loved, but without much change. Thankfully still great sounding, the track does prompt the question of why it took them so long.

Things change soon after that though. The Real Thing shimmers and glows with a delicate and playful top end, undercut by a throbbing bass groove and brief experimentation with loops and samples. Thomas Mars' voice is still the proto-typical indie rock touchstone it's always been; youthful and optimistic with a wild edge he clearly loves getting to show off.

There isn't a bad track on the tight, 40-minute album, but the seven-minute title track stands as a real highlight, not only of the record, but of the band's entire oeuvre. The instrumental first half recalls science fiction soundtracks as it pulses and throbs with static grooves, before it settles into a vocally focused second half, with Mars employing a sexy crooner approach over the near Radiohead sounding electro conclusion.

If the album started with where Phoenix used the be, it finishes with where they've ended up. Closing duo Bourgeois and Oblique City recall their Sofia Coppola soundtrack work turned into contemplative, booming pop rock.

Phoenix still retain their indie pop sensibilities, but Bankrupt! sees them channel these in new and fascinating ways. Synthpop and new wave ideas permeate the record, and sustained fuzzy electronic noise backs nearly every track. The record is not the revelation Wolfgang… was, but it's perhaps equally as brilliant, certainly as fun and totally relevant to 2013.