Franz Ferdinand, so the story goes, was originally an unpopular Austrian duke who had the misfortune to visit Serbia one day. While he was there, a man called Gavrilo Princip decided to shoot him. If you paid attention to your high school history classes, you'd know that this was the incident that started the 1914-18 war. Myself, I didn't pay attention, and I'm only putting that in because Craig filled me in on the background, and it provides a convenient opening paragraph for this review. Hurrah!

Unlike the murdered Archduke, this particular Franz Ferdinand hails from Glasgow in Scotland, not Austria. Also, they're a rock band specialising in a sort of indie punk sound, rather than a petty European despot. This debut release is an EP consisting of three specially recorded studio tracks, as well as two home demo tracks, one of which is a repeat of the title track.

Given that there are only four songs here, it's hard really to form a solid opinion of the band. The title track is a fast-paced tune that really defies genre classification; it oozes popular-indie sentiment though, cruising along running over everything in its path. Van Tango is built around a staccato guitar riff, that sounds a lot like Hot Hot Heat or other such new wave bands, especially when the cheesy electronic noises start coming into the music. Shopping For Blood, on the other hand, is gothy by way of "The Rocky Horror Picture Show", a bizarre mixture of The Fall and glam-rock, featuring lyrics about the Scottish gentry, of all things.

The two home demos tacked onto the end of this release don't really say much and aren't worth more than a couple of listens. Most annoyingly, one of them is just a re-hash of Darts of Pleasure that isn't even that different to the studio version presented here. More tellingly, this EP barely clocks in at fifteen minutes, which makes it just a bit too short for my liking, and not really value for money.

The hype machines have been working overtime for Franz Ferdinand, and despite their similarity to The Strokes, with bright, carefree lyrics and melodies, I doubt whether they have the staying power of that band. Still, this isn't a bad release, it's just a little too short and stunted to really indicate whether the band has what it takes. On another level, the music here is all interesting and catchy, but there isn't that much of it, especially when they had to use the same song twice just to flesh it out to an acceptable length. Franz Ferdinand are a band worth looking out for in the future, but this EP is nothing but an infuriatingly brief taste of their sound.