Franz Ferdinand is one smart cookie of a band. Although this statement doesn’t come as any great revelation to diehard Franz fans, “You Could Have It So Much Better” is one of the most intelligent CDs to come along in quite a while. Toward the end of one track “Walk Away,” for instance, the group name drops prominent (but mostly bad egg) world leaders – a set that includes Stalin, Hitler, Churchill and Mao Tse Tung -- all in one fell swoop. Don’t expect a similar leadership roll call from, say, Ashlee Simpson anytime soon. In fact, you shouldn’t expect much of anything from Simpson – except, perhaps, a long list of her public mishaps.

Let not this work’s political elements fool you, though. This is not political rock. Instead, it’s both romantic and sociological at the same time. The disc opens with “The Fallen” -- which is a track that somehow mixes The Kinks with the theme from “The Munsters” – that lyrically tries to get inside the head of a hooligan. “Some say you're trouble, boy/Just because you like to destroy/All the things that bring the idiots joy.”

There isn’t a clear blueprint of inspiration that can be traced to this group. Its latest CD can only be described as Franz Ferdinand music, because it’s all over the map stylistically. The aforementioned “Walk Away,” for instance, has a Madness feel to it, whereas “Evil and a Heathen” -- with its big, booming drums -- comes off closer to swing music, or something rockin’ by the Stray Cats.

Vocalist Alex Kapranos looks too doggone clean-cut to be singing about the sordid characters he describes throughout this work, so maybe the closing “Outsiders” sums up his unlikely circumstance best. “It's bright on the outside/The bright love the dark side/I know it's obvious/But sometimes/You just have to say it.” Kapranos and his fellow bright lads live to explore these shadowy regions of life, and yet they still make such unsightly discoveries come off like intelligent discourse. And you can’t have it much better than that.