Phoenix's debut album, United, appear in 2000 on Astralwerks and was recorded over two months. The album featured guest appearances from friends and family, including Thomas Bangalter (Daft Punk), Philippe Zdar (Cassius), and d'Arcy's mother's choral society on the track "Funky Squaredance." From that point, they issued Alphabetical (2004), It's Never Been Like That (2006), and their mainstream breakthrough, the critically adored Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix (2009).

It's Never Been Like That was conceived with a live mentality. If at first it sounds breezily, crazily immediate, that vigor should not detract from its deeper, more lasting residual air of a band at the peak of their powers, both musically and intellectually.

Jump out cut "Long Distance Call" lends the album its be-damned-with-what-went-before title. A bracing guitar intro segues into a stop start verse that is punctuated by one of those keyboard motifs that Phoenix seem so effortlessly to dust off from a synthesized archive and bring swinging back into modernity. The chorus is a defiant plea for their intention of starting over. The mosh pit ought to be alerted.

Other highlights of the record include the buoyant springtime jangle of "Consolation Prizes," the bold opening salvo referencing their own French-ness, "Napoleon Says," and the aptly titled "Second To None." This record sounds terrific loud. It has a jump-around zeal that previous Phoenix albums have only hinted at. It is both succinct and playful. Oh, and if it is a fashionable record, then it is fashionable only by accident and that is only because integrity is fashionable once more.

Track Listing
Side 1
Napoleon Says
Consolation Prizes
Rally
Long Distance Call
One Time Too Many

Side 2
Lost and Found
Courtesy Laughs
North
Sometimes in the Fall
Second To None