A quarter century after the French quartet Phoenix formed, it hardly seems likely that they’d make the most fresh-sounding album since the one that lit up the alt-rock charts in 2009, “Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart” — but they’ve done it with “Alpha Zulu.” It’s not a reinvention nor even particularly different from their previous efforts — the whizzing synthesizers, buoyant chords and effervescent, exhilarating choruses couldn’t be anyone else, even without Thomas Mars’ unmistakable vocals. But they’ve optimized and maximized their template in a way that seems effortless.
That spirit probably stems largely from the bandmembers’ elation at reuniting after eight months of lockdown, writing all of the album’s songs together in a shuttered museum they’d rented, Musée des Arts Décoratifs, which is part of the Louvre complex in central Paris; every song on the album except one, “Winter Solstice,” was written by the quartet together (both elements are reflected in the album’s neo-classic cover artwork). “We couldn’t stop producing music,” said guitarist Christian Mazzalai in the album’s bio. “In these first 10 days, we wrote almost all of the album.” The album is also infused with the memory of their friend and collaborator Philippe Zdar, who died in 2019.
Despite the tragedy that preceded it and the desolation of the deserted museum and the locked down metropolis around them, the elation of the reunion is obvious in the songs, something that reflects the proverbial zeitgeist that we all felt when seeing friends after too long apart. There’s an uplift and optimism to the songs that makes this possibly the group’s most cheerful album to date — it starts off downright peppy (particularly with the soaring “Tonight,” which features Vampire Weekend’s Ezra Koenig on vocals) before easing into slower and more introspective songs. The whole thing breezes by in a quick 35 minutes that’s over too fast.
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