The Human Fear

With their 2022 compilation Hits to the Head, Franz Ferdinand proved themselves one of the only 21st century rock bands who could pull off a bona fide greatest-hits album without looking criminally delusional. But the delightful charm of The Human Fear is that this greatest-hits album now sounds incomplete.

Still shamelessly livin’ it up, with an eyebrow cocked and high kicks galore, ‘The Human Fear’ is – as promised – Franz-y as fuck. You do you, hun; you do it so well.

Franz Ferdinand's first album since 2018's Always Ascending finds them re-invigorated, if not wholly reborn. [Feb 2025, p.88]

It's a deeply fun record that radiates vivacity and, most endearingly, sounds like a band who still truly love what they do. [Jan 2025, p.35]

Serious times call for serious records, which Franz Ferdinand have delivered with their sixth studio album. Well, sort of. Fear in all forms is examined on The Human Fear, but there's still that lightness of touch that marks them out as a band it's fun to dance to. [Jan 2025, p.102]

It’s not quite Phil Spector’s Wall of Sound, but Franz Ferdinand take an expansive approach to their sixth album, and it suits them.

Franz Ferdinand feel more engaged than they have in some time on The Human Fear. It's some of their most self-assured sounding music, but thanks to its naked emotions and eclectic choices, it's also some of their most human-sounding music. All told, it's a respectable -- but not too respectable -- addition to their body of work.

Fun, lean, and concise, ‘The Human Fear’ finds Franz Ferdinand looking to the future without any need to panic.

It's the album's embrace of retro-futurist video arcade electronica on The Doctor and Hooked, verging at times on a lascivious indie Prodigy, that keeps Franz Ferdinand surprising 20 years in. [Feb 2025, p.72]

The Human Fear isn’t provocative enough to revitalize their reputation, but it certainly won’t do it any harm.

There’s a long-absent freshness to the first few songs, which simply fizz with ideas: The Doctor possesses a manic energy; the standout Hooked deserves to fill dancefloors. But that early charge isn’t sustained and there’s a distinct sag to the middle of The Human Fear.

It’s not bad, sometimes it’s even very good, but it ought to feel much more significant than this.

At this point, for better or worse, this is what we can expect from the band: shades of what came before, a glint of the glory days, and a workmanlike determination to soldier on. Kapranos admitting he’s got the fear, it seems, doesn’t change too much.

This patchy work frequently flirts with brilliance, momentarily engaging with excellence before returning to the meandering rhythms that make up the finished set.

There are jaunty little stabs at the band’s earlier post-punk revival sound, but even these are more of a pedestrian shuffle than an exuberant rush. Audacious is pleasant enough in a toe-tapping kind of way, but it’s still something of a misnomer. Elsewhere, the harder Kapranos flails around trying to recapture the magic of old, the more desperate and sad The Human Fear sounds.