Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix (CD - 2009)

Personnel: Cedric Plancy (flute).

Additional personnel: Thomas Hedlund (drums, sampler).

Audio Mixer: Philippe Zdar.

Audio Remasterer: Mike Marsh.

Photographer: Shoichi Kajino.

The slyly referential MOR-pop of Phoenix has, in part, staked it's effectiveness on the reclaiming of unfashionable music styles of yore. From electro-inflected country & western ditties to airy, synth-heavy soft-rock, the group's giddy embrace of all that's considered schlock--retouching the results to a fine point with crisp, modern production and a hip, young attitude--ascended them to the status of postmodern pop auteurs par excellence. WOLFGANG AMADEUS PHOENIX, the band's fourth album, further refines their approach, reining in the scattershot, darts-to-the-wall tactics of the past to reveal some of the most vibrantly melodic and robust songwriting of their career. The album kicks off with the bouncy, feel good rave-up "Lisztomania," a song whose, mostly, nonsense lyrics singer Thomas Mars imbues with convincing stylistic panache. The only song that deviates from the album's revved-up and stylized pop perfection is the plangent, nearly eight-minute, epic "Love Like a Sunset," which explores the shoegazery melodrama of groups like M83. minimize