MUSIC making is a hidden art. A band disappear for four years, then suddenly emerge from the studio in a flurry of promotion with a fully formed album.

But this smooth process belies the swan’s frantic legwork below the surface. Singer Alex Kapranos and his fellow archdukes will have spent much time jamming Tonight, working with this riff then that, trying a lyric here, a vocal melody there, before deciding where everything should go. It must sometimes be difficult to decide where one song ends and another begins.

Alas, resolving this problem appears to have been beyond Franz Ferdinand this time around. A stock indie-disco-funk feel pervades Tonight, only alighting for the last two tender tracks, which offer welcome relief. Kapranos’ lyrics are at times delightful, full of laconic wit and artful smut. And some tracks really deliver: first single Ulysses is catchy; Lucid Dreams is an uncharacteristic techno stonker. But much of the rest blurs together.

Unbelievably, No You Girls Never Know and Twilight Omens have practically the same chorus. This is the sound of a band in decline.