Franz Ferdinand have announced their sixth album, The Human Fear. The follow-up to 2018’s Always Ascending is set to arrive on January 10, 2025, via Domino. The record was produced by Mark Ralph, who previously worked with the band on 2013’s Right Thoughts, Right Words, Right Action. Today’s announcement comes with the release of the new single ‘Audacious’, which comes paired with a video directed by longtime collaborator Andy Knowles and filmed at Barrowland in Glasgow. Check it out and find the album cover and tracklist below.
“Making this record was one of the most life-affirming experiences I’ve had, but it’s called The Human Fear,” the band’s Alex Kapranos relfected in a press release. “Fear reminds you that you’re alive. I think we all are addicted in some way to the buzz it can give us. How we respond to it shows how we are human. So here’s a bunch of songs searching for the thrill of being human via fears. Not that you’d necessarily notice on first listen.”
Of the new single, Kapranos said: “It’s about having an audacious response when you feel the fabric of existence come undone around you. Being bold, contrary. Peering over the edge into the eternity of non-existence and saying Aye! Fuck it! Not today thank you!”
Andy Knowles added: “After listening to ‘Audacious’ for the first time it immediately felt like a song which needed a celebration of a video. I wanted to build on the jocular approach we took for ‘Curious’ in 2022, contrasting some of the more sombre moments of life with an explosion of fun when you look at things through an ‘audacious’ lens.”
In 2022, Franz Ferdinand released a greatest hits compilation, Hits to the Head.
The Human Fear Cover Artwork:
The Human Fear Tracklist:
1. Audacious
2. Everyday Dreamer
3. The Doctor
4. Hooked
5. Build It Up
6. Night Or Day
7. Tell Me I Should Stay
8. Cats
9. Black Eyelashes
10. Bar Lonely
11. The Birds
