Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix by Phoenix @ ARTISTdirect.com

To write their new album, Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix, the Gallic quartet decamped to various locales away from their home studio in Versailles, searching for the stimulus necessary to transform the new material into a coherent LP: Brancowitz and his bandmates Thomas Mars (vocals), Christian Mazzalai (guitar), and Deck D'Arcy (bass) worked in the Parisian studio of 19th-century Romantic painter Théodore Géricault ("The light was beautiful," Brancowitz says), chartered a houseboat on the Seine ("Not the best idea—some of us got seasick"), and stayed at the Bowery Hotel in New York City for a month, among others. As the guitarist explains with self-effacing humor, "It was like our Orson Welles moment."

The results collected on Wolfgang demonstrate a kind of deliberate, considered approach, and in turn, they’ve created what is the best album in their already-amazing catalogue. Featuring the band's signature melding of synthetics and organics, of sharp, danceable rhythms and intense guitars, of effortless melody with a considerable dose of aural panache, the album's ten songs are more layered than previous efforts. "On our last album, we were trying to make a minimalist record—something austere, almost ascetic," Brancowitz explains. "This time we wanted to create something more elaborate." That's evident on electro-tinged slow jams like "Fences," the sweeping and mostly instrumental "Love Like a Sunset," and the spirited pop of lead-off track "Lisztomania," On first listen, his lyrics might seem obscure, but Mars definitely intends to reference the Hungarian composer: "Franz Liszt was the rock star of his day," he explains. "Other musicians hated him for getting all the girls; his concerts were out of control. This song's about playing live, the romantic beauty of a crazy crowd...and about the loneliness of still being one in a group of many."

All Music Guide Review

Realigned with Philippe Zdar, the half of Cassius who mixed United, Phoenix make adjustments on the polarizing characteristics of their second and third albums -- the pokey and occasionally listless Alphabetical, the jagged and tune-deficient It's Never Been Like That -- with some of the most direct and enjoyable songs they've made to date. The two opening songs, the bopping "Lisztomania" and the buzzing "1901," are so immediate and prone to habitual play that the remainder of the album is bound to be neglected. There is plenty to like beyond that point, including "Lasso," which niftily alternates between a tangled rhythm and tight-spiral riffing, and the labyrinthine "Pt. 1" of "Love Like a Sunset," which serves the same purpose as the extended instrumental passages on Roxy Music's Avalon, at least until its rousing conclusion and shift into "Pt. 2." Beyond containing the band's best, most efficient songwriting, the album also stands apart from the first three studio albums by projecting a cool punch that is unforced. Vocalist Thomas Mars, more bright-eyed and youthful than ever, also sounds more a part of these songs, rather than coming across as a protruding element that clashes against the instruments. Maybe they've just hit their stride. ~ Andy Kellman, Rovi