Franz Ferdinand Are "Groovier"

After a three-year wait, a new Franz Ferdinand record is finally in sight. The arty Scottish dance-punks are set to release their third full-length, Tonight: Franz Ferdinand, on Jan. 27 — a date that's been a long time coming for both the band and their fans.

"We played a lot of concerts for [2005's You Could Have It So Much Better], and we didn't finish touring until late 2006," guitarist/keyboardist Nick McCarthy explains over the phone from New York. "We didn't want to rush it.

"We wanted to calm down after really intense touring. We needed time to recharge and lead normal lives. We wanted to make sure the record was good as well. We recorded the last one in three months. We wanted to take our time with this one."

Tonight: Franz Ferdinand was produced by Dan Carey (Lily Allen, Hot Chip). Like its title suggests, it's a loose concept record about a night on the town.

"We sort of noticed that all the songs were set at night, which is why we called it Tonight: Franz Ferdinand," McCarthy says. "We structured it like an evening out, so the first song might be when you're getting ready in front of the mirror, then the second is heading out to the club, and so on. The last two are quieter, like when you're walking home and you're still up when the sun rises."

Like its predecessors, Tonight is intended for the dance floor. But the band (filled out by vocalist/guitarist Alex Kapranos, bassist Bob Hardy and drummer Paul Thomson) take their frenetic pace down a bit.

"It's a dirty dance record," says McCarthy. "It's a bit groovier than the last one.

"Saying that we've slowed down sounds bad — we're not falling asleep — but it's actually more danceable than the last one."

A lower BPM rate isn't the only departure on the new record.

"We've moved away from electric guitars," McCarthy reveals. "We used a lot of synthesizers and drum machines on this one.

"We've moved away from being an indie guitar band. We didn't want to fall into our own cliches. We wanted to do things we've never done before."

That apparently includes using a box of human bones as a percussion instrument.

"Alex and I went to this estate auction, and there was this skeleton for sale," McCarthy explains. "They sold it to us for 26 pounds (about $49 Canadian) in the end.

"We tried to put it together and we found there was no head, two left legs and three sets of ribs, so it just kind of sat in a box in the studio. One night, while we were recording, we saw it sitting there and we thought, 'Why not use it as percussion?'"

Franz Ferdinand will perform at Toronto's Lee's Palace on Dec. 4 and Vancouver's Commodore Ballroom on Dec. 9.