By Matt Fink

For a band that confidently wields the traditional tools of the pop trade--melodic ingenuity, lyrical directness, dynamic band interplay--Phoenix was an unlikely candidate for taking an irreverent turn. But the French indie pop quartet is downright cheeky on Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix, their fourth full-length release and follow-up to their 2006 breakthrough, It's Never Been Like That. Split between glistening synth anthems ("1991"), disco soul breakdowns ("Fences"), and expansive avant-garde detours ("Love Like a Sunset"), it's an album that subverts every rule in the power-pop handbook and makes up a few more just to break them. Guitarist Laurent Brancowitz and vocalist Thomas Mars tell us about their new French Revolution.

Read the full interview after the jump.

All right, how'd you come up with the title?

Laurent Brancowitz: It was a gift from above. Suddenly, it came, and we really loved it. Usually, the title is the very last thing we find, after all the songs are written. We cherished it. We loved the panache of it. You know in astrophysics, there is this concept of singularity? The record was like a black hole, with lots of gravity, and things that cannot happen normally do. That's what we liked, that defying our own perception of what is acceptable.

Did you think it was a humorous title?
Thomas Mars: I'm going to say no. To me, it's a very pop title. There is something pop about it, in a way that you take the existing myth and you make it yours. Last summer, we had a show in Versailles Castle, and, to me, it felt the same. I grew up there and our studio was literally one hundred meters from the place we played.

Do you think the title fits the tone of the music on the record?

TM: Yes, but some people are confused and think we have some Mozart samples on the record. I've seen that too much. But we always wanted to do something futuristic, something where you write a song and you picture yourself a few years after playing it.

Were there ways that you wanted this new record to be different from the previous one?

TM: Yes. I think the previous one was jubilation. Do you say that word? It's the same word in French. There was something really enjoyable in the way that we made it far from home and really fast. We had a fantasy for the first one, almost how the Rolling Stones did Exile on Main Street. I had this great book. It's pictures from when they rented the castle in France. It was like a proper exile, and they wrote the songs really fast. I think it was for tax reasons or something. For us, it was just going to Berlin, to a place that's not home and not comfortable and a little threatening.

Do you think this record is darker?

TM: There have always been some dark and melancholic elements in our music and things that are more uplifting and happy. Here, I think you feel more the dark. We never start a record with an idea of what we want to express, and you kind of know what you wanted to express after you've done the record. So it's coming to us right now, what these last years were like. But I think there's something darker and something maybe more passionate about it, too. I think there's maybe a more romantic idea of it, but not in an epic or dramatic way. European romanticism, you know.

You originally started working on this on a houseboat?

TM: Yes. We rented a boat in Paris, which was a terrible idea. I think water and music is not the best combination for us.

Why didn't it work?

TM: It's just that your ear is already stimulated enough with music. You don't want it to be stimulated with a balance problem. You don't want your body to work on music and balance at the same time. I think it was a romantic idea of being in Paris on the river. We would be close to the Eiffel Tower, and it would almost be like the ultimate Paris trip or something. We would see the Eiffel Tower light up at night, and it was romantic. It was so French that it became too much.

Do you consider your band to be distinctively French?

TM: I don't know, because in France they really don't consider us French, because we sing in English. But I think it's very French, yes. I think it's French because of how we grew up and how our musical culture was shaped. Growing up in Versailles, it was a really remote place. In school, there were kids listening to music and some not listening to music. It wasn't like there were the goth kids and the rock kids. Anything that was good or inspiring, we'd take it without any fear that we would betray a teenage spirit or something. I think that was something very particular to where we grew up.

Overall, what would be a gratifying response to this record?

LB: I like it when people are crying for our music. That's the most satisfying response. That's why I'm a musician, because I cry a lot when I hear good music. That's what I want to create.

Have you seen that happen at your shows?

LB: No. Well, maybe, once. I like to imagine a lot of people crying at the same time, listening to my guitar solo.