Phoenix
It's Never Been Like That

THE REVIEW

It's summer, and I've completely forgotten French. My teacher never really taught it to me; he preferred to talk about himself or computers, rather, how he interacted with computers. I suppose it's to help me understand the lyrics these French guys sing in English. Otherwise, it wouldn’t make sense, I mean, it would be like Afterhours singing in English. Yes, yes, I know they used to sing in English, I'm talking about now. Ah, right, even now. But now the audience beats them up. Or maybe it's the other way around.

The structure of each song is roughly the same. Acoustic/slightly electric guitar forms the basis upon which riffs that are reminiscent of the Strokes unfold, all one note at a time, or some arpeggio, Fender trademark. Drums simply keep the beat. I've been told the bass is there, I swear. The beloved little keyboard makes an appearance now and then, colorful. He sings, as usual, like a 14-year-old going to order a Negroni at the bar. Let me explain. He's uninterested, but it's a fake uninterested, aware that this is a moment of change, like when you're handed the keys to the house for the first time or the car keys, it's always about keys. Keys along with the Negroni are the emblem of change. I remember that a few years ago they made excellent pseudo-electro-indie-dance-enticing-for-aperitif, now they make an album of excellent songs. And that's it. Pure and simple songs. But the album works anywhere. In the car while doing New York-Los Angeles, or was it Milan-Modena?, when you're alone at home, you wake up, and damn it's 2 PM, when you need to let the afternoon pass to get to the evening, when at an aperitif they finally replaced that damn United, with this. F-i-n-a-l-l-y. It may not be a masterpiece but I love it. Right album, in the right place, at the right time.

Lost & Found seems to me to be among the best tracks of the year, almost all from this album to tell the truth, but I'm picking this one because while waiting to take an exam, I imagined an idea for the video. And it’s very lovely. He's sitting in a library, seeing the girl of his life reading Eggers, the author can be replaced with the find/replace command, he imagines them as if they’ve been dating for years. He imagines meeting her just like that, in the library, asking her if she liked Eggers, and then all the walks, the sea, the summer, more than one summer, the park, and many other things. He approaches: "Do you like Eggers?" "No, I hate him." And she walks away. Then she turns and says: "Idiot, we have to go; my folks are waiting for us for dinner." I tried to mitigate the happy ending with dinner at her place. It will work, I hope.