A new spin that shouldn’t have been

Franz Ferdinand has remixed their latest album “Tonight.” What I don’t understand is why.

First off, “Tonight” wasn’t exactly a total triumph. It had plenty of good moments – even a few almost-great ones – but “Blood” has even fewer. The concept of this dub-experimentation/this-is-what-we-wished-our-album-sounded-like-backward is clever, but the execution is way off.

Singer Alex Kapranos’ vocals sound like snippets of a drug-induced dream sequence set to bad techno. Also, “Tonight” has been out for months – the window for nifty electronic spins has passed.

None of “Blood’s” newly dubbed tracks surpass their original counterparts. Instead, you’re left with minutes of vocally empty, over-synthesized beats that only make you wish you were listening to “Tonight” instead. The hardest part is that the tracks would be decent if reined in.

I’m no electronic authority, but I know that cringing usually isn’t a desired reaction unless you’re producing disturbing-sounding avant garde. A big part of the brilliance of electronic dance music is the precise layering of different sounds that vibrate a song onto the dance floor, but in this case, precise layering has become a synthesized slaughter.

But let’s be fair. The record does reach some nice points. “Die on the Floor” is a pretty great mix of “Tonight’s” “Can’t Stop Feeling,” and “Katherine Hit Me” (a dubbed version of “No You Girls” and “Katherine Kiss Me”) might not be what I’d call good, but they’re intriguing at least. A few of the mixes would have made great bonus tracks or even an all right EP, but the effect of “Blood” was lost in the overwhelming presence of “the concept, man.”

Still, my biggest problem with this album is that I lack the patience to even get through most of it. Even with all that extra, unnecessary and over-done electric hooking, the record is a bore.