Rising from the ashes of tepidity

It's hard to place Phoenix in any particular category. Sure, they're a European pop band that sings in English and plays guitars, but they play a kind of affected, self-conscious soft rock that can either soothe or patronize depending on who's listening. They don't fit as a French band -- they actually write decent songs from time to time -- but there's hardly an appropriate genre with which to describe them.\nWith the backing of nightmarish ghouls like Hedi Slimane, Phoenix has recently found itself in the spotlight. "Two Young" was featured in Sophia Coppola's overwrought "Lost in Translation," and their new release It's Never Been Like That stands to be their first release to potentially score in the US market. This is, in fact, something of a big deal given that only two other French bands have recently made headway here, and all three (Phoenix, Air and Daft Punk) are from the same (inordinately affluent) suburb of Paris.\nHowever, the album rarely expands beyond being decent. "Consolation Prizes" and "Rally" manage the same jingly beat, the same happy pop chords and the same inoffensive mildness found in any palatable soft rock. It's clean, well-produced and wholly bland.\nThere are okay parts. "Sometimes in a Fall," for example, is a great song (but unfortunately it's made to last far longer than it needs to). "Courtesy Laughs" has a nice chord progression and a great rhythm, and by the end of the track, the chorus manages a jarring, unexpected excitement. Fans of the Strokes will sense a lot of common ground in the songwriting style (and, however inadvertently, the faux-dreamy ESL lyrics seem comparable to Julian Casablancas' slurred-speech cocaine rambles). At the end of the day, it's all mildly interesting.\nStill, the comparison with the Strokes is entirely fitting, because in all truth Phoenix is trying to play their mellow cousins. This is their best album so far, but it's still such familiar territory that it's hard to distinguish this from anything off of United or Alphabetical. Songs like "North," a wholly boring instrumental, are just unnecessary.\nI'm culturally biased, but I struggle to understand why Americans care about Phoenix when there's a wealth of good Gallic music out there. Maybe it's the skinny ties, but if I didn't know any better, I'd think this was music made by a young, more emasculated Phil Collins; no name-dropping by frumpy cineastes and emaciated ephebophiles can ever salvage that.