Not to be confused with Wellington’s Phoenix Foundation, this group is French and Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix is their fourth album.

Alarmingly, it’s the first I’ve heard, and it’s so good I’m going to have to check out the back-catalogue.

If you could get a great power pop group (say The Cars, or XTC) and refabricate them in stylish French brogues, and then add a dash of Daft Punk-type French disco to the equation, you’d end up with something not unlike Phoenix.

Cliche alert: there’s really nothing not to like about Phoenix. Vocalist Thomas Mars has one of those classic pop voices and writes lyrics that are smart and just the right side of oblique. The tunes are ridiculously catchy (I was humming the song ‘Fences’ the second time I played it), and they really straddle the rock/dance divide so seamlessly that you’d swear there had never been an anti-disco movement amongst the rock contingent. Somehow they keep everything that’s enjoyable about the rock dynamic and dramatic propulsion of rock, the narrative structure of the best pop, and the good grooves of dance music, without any apparent compromise.

Definitely a high-rotate item on the Steelo jukebox. GARY STEEL

4 Stars