Phoenix Crafts a Fantasy With Catchy ‘Ti Amo’

If the 2009 release of “Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix” marked Phoenix‘s bombastic introduction to the rock landscape, and their 2011 album “Bankrupt!” cemented the veteran French rock band’s place as one of the most forward-thinking acts to achieve recent mainstream success, their latest release “Ti Amo” might cause you to rethink some of these things.

Drawing inspiration from “a fantasized version of Italy” with “eternal Roman summers,” gelato, and “juke-boxes on the beach,” “Ti Amo” provides the listener with all the sweetness that one might imagine in their fantasies, but none of the enduring and lasting variety of reality. Much of the album is synth-heavy combined with soft pop elements to create a body of music that is well-constructed, but still lacking. Sure,“Ti Amo” is danceable and pleasant, but with its mildly catchy melodies, disco influences, and vocalist Thomas Mars’ heavily affected falsetto crooning, “Ti Amo” is almost too saccharine and lacks the emotional and musical depth and variety that we have always appreciated from the envelope-pushing band.

Part of Phoenix’s inspiration for their latest album is the sweet and silky smooth Italian gelato that partially inspired this album, and that smoothness really comes through. Much like how gelato melts in your mouth on a warm summer day, “Ti Amo” features songs like “Tuttifrutti,” “Fior Di Latte,” and “Lovelife” that showcase the glassy pop that Phoenix is known for, but are songs that merely melt in your ear leaving little aural nutrition.

If you’re looking for songs on “Ti Amo” that more closely match the Phoenix of the past, there aren’t many. The final track “Telefono” employs a reverberating guitar that doesn’t seem to fit into the album’s airy soundscape, and would seem to make more sense in “Bankrupt!” than in this newest release. If anything, “Goodbye Soleil” functions as the song that best fulfills the sound of the album. It’s light, and vaguely hypnotic with its repetitive synth beat that underlies the whole song, while still featuring the breathy croon that belie Mars’ lyrics. However, much like the album as a whole, “Goodbye Soleil” leaves you unfulfilled.

The lead single and album opener “J-Boy” offers the most varied musical flavor in this album, but “J-Boy” makes a promise that the rest of the album can’t keep. With an emotional and musical punch that is unlike anything in the rest of the album, a layered and more detailed sound, and a chorus that hints at the darker side of romance, “J-Boy” creates a musical picture of love, Italian style. However, this is also the song that the rest of the album wishes it could live up to.

Phoenix says that “Ti Amo” was partly inspired by Monica Vitti and Marcello Mastroianni, two of the preeminent actors of the Italian neorealist and art film era who perfectly depicted the highs and lows of reality and the power of romance. However, this album fails to evoke the depth, contemplation, and emotional force that their films captured. In essence, “Ti Amo” is but a cheap remake of these pictures: a recreation of the original emotional creativity filmed through rose-colored lenses.

Despite all the gelato, sunny days, and Italian romance that one can imagine, these fantasies never last, and neither does “Ti Amo.” Phoenix is at their best when using their unique and varied sound to create an impactful piece of music that is catchy, deep, and interesting, unfortunately, “Ti Amo” is merely catchy.

Ti Amo is available on Apple Music June 9.