THERE was a time when Franz Ferdinand looked set to be the biggest band in Britain, assuming they didn’t actually manage it. Their brand of artrock-to-dance-to had a freshness that chimed with the early years of a new millennium, and their signature hit Take Me Out became an indie-disco classic. Then the Arctic Monkeys happened, and Franz started sliding down the divisions.

Maybe Alex Kapranos and co. have always been too knowingly cool, too measured, too precise, and too unknowable to ever engender the sort of warmth that looser, rowdier bands inspire.

If so, it’s yet more proof that the music industry just ain’t fair. Franz remain an extremely tight, extremely clever band, capable of vaguely unsettling pop-rock crafted through instinct rather than machine. Always Ascending, their fifth album, showcases their best qualities while simultaneously hinting at why they’ve always attracted admiration, appreciation, but never true affection.

Sonically and technically, Always Ascending is as excellent as you’d expect from a Franz Ferdinand album. The opening title track is a fantastic slice of electro-punk that suggests a band reinvigorated and focused rather than adjusting to life after the loss of a key member (guitarist Nick McCarthy departed last summer), as do Glimpse Of Love and Feel The Love Go, where Franz demonstrate their ability to give downbeat melodies a gleaming coat of disco paint.

And these and other tracks are still driven by one of the hallmarks of this band – the ability to use clipped, overlayed vocal repetition as a song’s pulse, a trick that has always been made to work by the exactness of their sound.

It’s when Franz either slow the pace or move into the-state-of-things territory that Always Ascending loses altitude. They do observation better than storytelling; as Lois Lane and Huck And Jim prove, they will never be The Divine Comedy however much they may sometimes want to be, while The Academy Award, to paraphrase one of Franz’ earlier albums, could have been so much better, wasting a gorgeously grandiose start by drifting into mawkishness.

Nobody really makes music like Franz Ferdinand do, but that sometimes isn’t enough on its own.