After experiencing enormous popularity and critical acclaim for their debut and follow-up albums in 2004 and 2005, Scottish band Franz Ferdinand reprises their spotlight with their long-awaited third album, Tonight: Franz Ferdinand. While it is evident the new album is evolutionary for the band, Tonight is somewhat of a stale affair with a drowsy side effect similar to that of Nyquil.

After several years on tour and in the studio, Franz Ferdinand decided to steer the sound of their new album away from the pop genre and toward a more dub-influenced dance rock. Indeed, much of the album displays the heavy bass, reverbs and rhythms typical of dub. Tonight also introduces a strong electronic presence, delivered via synthesizers, adding a new dimension of modernity to the group’s sound.

While the new album as a whole is entirely listenable, Franz Ferdinand has submerged itself into a new hybrid genre without experimenting enough to achieve any sort of internal variance, leaving much of Tonight sounding generic and indistinguishable from other tracks on the album. This is not to say these tracks are bad — on the contrary they are all palatable, if not enjoyable — though it is problematic when a 12-song album sounds like a four or five-song one. No track is so terrible that it warrants skipping, except maybe “Dream Again,” but not many merit a second play or are even memorably distinct from the blur.

Standouts include the album’s first single, “Ulysses,” which opens Tonight with a down-tempo beat that quickly gives way to a heavy, sinister synth and rock chorus. What would be a very successful track, fraught with fresh sound transitions and rich vocals, flounders from the numbing contrast of smart lyrics such as “You’re never going home/ You’re not Ulysses,” and the fatuous opening lyrics “I’m bored/ C’mon let’s get high,” that make the track almost impossible to take seriously. Nevertheless, it is noteworthy as actually being distinguishable from other songs on the album.

Also straying from the generic are “Bite Hard,” which transitions from a quiet piano intro to a catchy bass and key heavy dance-rock tune, and “Live Alone,” by far the album’s most synthesized track, allowing the various electronic loops and high-tempo guitar and bass to build off each other.

Less successfully deviant, “Lucid Dreams” starts off with the generic, dated post-punk revival but gets a breath of life after about a minute, only to go comatose at the four-minute mark, which then yields a lengthy and incongruous part-industrial, part-electronic instrumental.

Appropriately closing the album on a sleepy note, “Katherine Kiss Me” stands alone as the only acoustic track of Tonight. With lyrics that are quirky without being obscure or inane and an interesting melody, the track oozes potential, but is detracted by questionable key changes and oddly off-putting vocals, and thus is representative of Tonight as a whole — promising without ever prospering.

In the end, Tonight is a highly listenable collection of songs. The new sound is interesting, and many of the tracks have potential, yet nothing about Tonight is terribly bold, and so it is held back from having any real hits.

3 stars out of 5