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If recent rumors are true, Thomas Mars from Phoenix is having a (presumably) incredibly attractive baby with Sofia Coppola. And while that does seem to make a little bit of sense, it’s still kind of unfair. Mars has pretty much everything going for him — namely, an awesome French pop band that people all over the world love, and a fantastic new album from said awesome band. So I guess he can knock up whatever hip celebrity he likes. This new record is less riddled with synthesizers than Phoenix’s past two albums and much heavier on all-out, guitar-based rockers, but it’s still got that obscenely clean production and deft but subtle use of jazz chords — the traits that usually get the band compared to their 70s progenitors like ELO. But they share more than just musicianship with those bands; they’ve got the songwriting chops to back it up. Every song is as crisply structured as it is polished in the studio. When you pair that with Mars’ good looks and excellent taste in women, it starts to seem like there’s pretty much nothing this band can’t do.
