By Abigail Lynn Davidson
I grew up on Phoenix. They’d have to make a couple of very, very bad albums for them to leave my top 10 bands list (I could forgive one, maybe it was an off-album for them). This album was exactly what I wanted. I was really hoping it would be different enough from their past works so that it felt fresh, but not so far off that it didn’t feel like Phoenix. It feels like them but it’s just a little bit moodier, and more modern than their other albums. It’s, of course, influenced by COVID-19, as they wrote and recorded it among lockdowns and pandemic-related restrictions, and while the lyrics regularly discuss the way we all felt during 2020, they took it in a directions uncommon among records recorded in the pandemic.
Alpha Zulu was recorded in the Musée des Arts décoratifs studio, in the Louvre. Yeah, that Louvre. The building was shut down due to the lockdown, and Phoenix used the time to write, record, and produce the album surrounded by incredibly influential visual art in one of the most important museums in the world, empty.
Creatively, they flourished in that kind of an environment.
This album felt like it was made to be performed. Its doesn’t feel like the slow releases that came out of the pandemic, this album feels like they were just waiting for things to become more normal so that they could tour with it, which they are.
“Tonight (feat. Ezra Koenig)” is Phoenix’s first song to feature an additional vocalist, and what makes more sense than choosing to include the lead singer of their 2000’s-indie-pop little brother, Vampire Weekend? It feels like it should have come out in 2008 and been played on all of the alternative stations. I mean that in the best possible way. They have this weird ability to make new music sound nostalgic.
“Winter Solstice” will always be my favorite song on this record, even if I don’t think it’s objectively the best one. It’s because the first time I heard it, I was at FORMAT Festival Night One, it was just so cool live. The bass made my hair move.
Another highlight of the record is, of course, “Alpha Zulu”, the title track. It feels like something different for them, and directly writes off anyone who said they were over after Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix‘s “1901” (their most listened-to song), was released. “Artefact” is the most on-brand song that’s on this album, it feels like it could go right after “Entertainment” on Bankrupt, like its calmer follow-up.
With this album, they’ve established that the Phoenix sound is something that can adapt to stay relevant without losing what makes it special. I hope they stick around, they aren’t done yet.
Rated nine out of ten
Hang it in the Louvre, it’s that good