Deck D’Arcy has a theory. The Phoenix bassist thinks that, on the band’s fifth album, 2013’s Bankrupt!, they “lost the groove”. The French four-piece were at the height of their fame: 2009’s Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix had bridged the gap between skinny-jeaned indie pop and festival tent EDM, vaulting d’Arcy and his bandmates – lead singer Thomas Mars and guitarist brothers Christian Mazzalai and Laurent Brancowitz, or Branco – to festival headliner status; their single 1901 was ubiquitous for what felt like years.
And yet, something had faltered; the groove, that alchemy, had dissipated. With a few years of touring and hard work, d’Arcy slowly started to feel it return. “We had it back on [2017’s] Ti Amo,” he says. “Nile Rodgers says you have to optimise the groove, and I think on this album” – Alpha Zulu, released yesterday – “we’re getting close.”
