RECORD RACK

Franz Ferdinand

“Tonight: Franz Ferdinand”

(Domino)

***

Franz Ferdinand might be the only rock band going that can make a tawdry little pickup line like “Kiss me where your eye won’t meet me” into a recurring lyric that shows up in a wan acoustic ballad. The tension between eager warehouse-party groping and frontman Alex Kapranos’ cold shoulders is Franz Ferdinand’s bread and butter, but it’s never been more clear than on “Tonight: Franz Ferdinand,” the Scottish quartet’s third LP.

“Tonight” is the band’s danciest record yet, but it’s the kind of dancing you do after running into an ex at a club and need to prove you’re having fun. “No You Girls,” the band’s best song since “Take Me Out,” gets huge mileage from its swaggering chorus call of “You girls never know how you make a boy feel,” and lead single “Ulysses” uses some nasty Moog stones to underscore walk-of-shame sentiments.

Those waiting for Franz to finally become the post-punk Bee Gees will lap up disco cuts like “Live Alone,” but there’s just enough sulkiness to last a solitary ride home. “I never resort to kissing your photo,” Kapranos sings on “Bite Hard.” “I just had to see how the chemicals taste.” A bit sour maybe, but alluring all the same.

-- August Brown

Bird and the Bee tap liquid gold

The Bird and the Bee

“Ray Guns Are Not Just the Future”

(Blue Note)

***

The Bird and the Bee, the project of singer Inara George and producer Greg Kurstin, makes exquisite dinner party music. That’s not a slight -- like any other subgenre, it has its good and its bad, its watered-down bubbly and its liquid gold. And the Bird and the Bee’s second album, “Ray Guns Are Not Just the Future,” is on the liquid gold side.

Building crisp pop imbibements that can stand up to several listens is no easy task, but the Bird and the Bee has found the trick: Complex melodies constructed of several simple, shiny parts, all revolving around George’s breathy voice, the calling card of a nocturnal party sprite who might be cooing her songs at a flirty soiree.

But she’s also not afraid to command the center: “Polite Dance Song” is a showcase for Kurstin and George’s sly wit. She’s also adorably kooky: In “Diamond Dave,” a perfumed mash note for David Lee Roth, she pledges her undying love for the king of the unitard.

-- Margaret Wappler

Remix doesn’t do justice to Cash

Various Artists

“Johnny Cash Remixed”

(Compadre)

**

The best music remixes amplify and/or smartly extrapolate on key components of their source material. When that doesn’t happen, it’s just musical name-dropping, which is more often than not the case in this project built around the recordings Johnny Cash made in the ‘50s at Sun Records.

It’s understandable that Snoop Dogg, who co-produced the album with Cash’s son John Carter Cash and Mathew Knowles, feels some kinship with Cash’s persona as a social outlaw. But the ominous minor-key orchestration at the heart of QDT Muzic’s remix of “I Walk the Line,” which features Snoop and leads off the album, is out of sync with the bits of Cash’s version that seep through the sonic soup.

More successful is Count de Money’s bouncy version of “Big River,” which brings an extra dollop of swampiness that’s in keeping with the original spirit. Sonny J’s treatment of “Country Boy” pops playfully alongside Cash’s voice. Alabama 3’s kitchen-sink reworking of “Leave That Junk Alone” hones in on a message that’s still relevant for the hip-hop crowd, and the church organ that’s thrown around Cash’s voice midway through is a great touch.

-- Randy Lewis