“Headline from this day on” begins the first track and lead single off Phoenix’s new album Bankrupt! The French group’s lyrics still aren’t always comprehensible, but the gist is right: After the group’s breakout 2009 album Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix, they’ve risen to top just about every bill they play on, from headlining Madison Square Garden in 2010 to headlining Coachella last weekend. Their sound has grown even bigger, too, with their variation on the so-called “Oriental riff” on “Entertainment” suggesting that they’re out to conquer the world.
Not that they’ve thrown out the formula that made Wolfgang a hit. In fact, Bankrupt! follows the same basic template. Both albums are 10 tracks, kick off with a monster single, and have an extended and mostly instrumental track in the middle, cleansing the palate for “side two.” On Wolfgang that song was “Love Like a Sunset.” Here it’s the 7-minute title track, which similarly ventures through several minutes of swelling synths before arriving at the vocal.
The album doesn’t come out until next Tuesday, but for now you can stream it in full on iTunes. And if you missed their surprisingly seamless collaboration with R. Kelly at Coachella last weekend—they brought him out to mash up their “1901” with his “Ignition (Remix)”—you can watch that below.
