This is the first song from the Grammy-winning band’s latest Greatest Hits album, Monuments and Melodies, which was released as a tribute to Incubus’ 18 year of charttopping megalomanic rock and roll.

Yes it’s been 18 years since they’ve been around (and it’s been almost 10 years since they released Drive)

The song is one of two new tracks included in the compilation of hit songs and B-sides.

The song is an easy-going track that doesn’t offer too much adrenaline-pumping rock emotion like Megalomaniac or classic balladeering like Drive.  It’s a simple song led nonchalantly by Brandon Boyd’s inimitable vocals, until it breaks out into a wicked guitar solo that almost makes up for the otherwise half-hearted effort on the track.

The track is not ambitious – it doesn’t sound like the band is trying to make a hit, it just sounds like they put together an original that could feature on the credits of their Best Of collection.  Well…because it’s nice to have something not too obtrusive on the credits and also not so clichéd as to be a past hit.  

Yes, the credits are a safe place for a new track.  But the credits are also when much of the audience leaves.  It’s the track that fills the silence of their departure and easily forgotten on leaving its ear-shot.

So it’s not necessarily a good place for a new track you want smashing the charts like a Kanye West temper tantrum.  It’s only a safe place.  But then Black Heart Inertia is a safe song, not veering from the Incubus alt-rock genre but nothing like an Incubus classic.

If it wins any popularity, will be out of obligatory respect for the band and because of any fresh relevance for Incubus.

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TNL’s the kind of station that will never let you forget the many suits Good Charlotte used to wear when they were hollering about how they ‘just wanna live’.   Law suit, white suit, black suit, birthday suit…and then the falsetto chorus.

And it’s never a bad thing to wave a few tribute flags to the bygones of the hit parade, when the hits are that good.

Franz Ferdinand seem to be doing just that with this World Premier, which is the second single from the FF’s album, Tonight Franz Ferdinand,.  

Back in their art school suit, it’s Franz Ferdinand tossing their groovy batons with lovable flare as they march their way onto the dance floor, grinning that all-Kinks smile, while winkin’ at ya some eye-rolling pick up lines.  

No You Girls uses the same intensely colorful formula that sent Take Me Out into an anthemic momentum like Rosa Parks on the Indie – chart bus.  Sitting on the radio-worthy side for all the other pop-loving white folk to see.

Filled with propulsive and colorful guitar riffs and an irresistible electro-pop tempo, the song is infectiously very TNL.  

And one thing’s for sure, this song will be spotted a mile away, as soon as that guitar intro begins.  The riff intro and continuous underlying frills got a little glam rock, a little retro charm and a little quirky cheekiness that combine into something you can’t scowl at, whether you’re hearing it in the middle of traffic, in the middle of your employers ego trip rant or in the middle of a valentino day dream, because you just can’t scowl at four punk-pop dance-rockers grinning gleefully at you, even if they are wearing really tight pants.

No You Girls is the slower, ballad-like sister-track or counterpart of Katherine Kiss Me, which is also featured on the same album.

 “Its two versions of the same event, said frontman Alex Kapranos in an interview with Rollingstone, “One with the sort of exaggeration with which you would tell it to your friends — and the other way, which is more vulnerable.”

Check out an unplugged studio version of the track here…

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And this is what it sounds like plugged in and live…

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And this is the album version…

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Much like the way the shimmering guitar intro of I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For pointed you in the direction of an unforgettable classic, the intro of this new track seems to point to that same old Joshua Tree direction of the land that promises this superband is still relevant.

The song is immediately identified as a U2 track from the very first sprinkle of work by Edge’s fingers, and even before you hear Bono’s toss-into-the-air howls of the word Magnificent, much like his rodeo yells on New Year’s Day.  

Resonating with a strong-willed spirituality though only a simple love song, it has enough of a U2 worthy chorus to make it a safe bet for chart life and maybe with enough radio time, also a sure-fire smash hit.  Bono ends each chorus by repeating the word Magnificent in his infamous half-choking half-straining vocal appeals to the air that stirs above him.  

After about 4 minutes of a tune you are getting accustomed to, the song then veers into a new lone terrain of Edge’s careening guitar wails, before returning to another two minutes of the original tune.  

It may seem two minutes longer than necessary, but the continued chugging rhymths made robust by Adam Clayton’s driving pulse of bass work, make this track an up tempo and promising direction to the band’s latest installment of music.

Of course, U2 are famed for getting the best attention for their albums from their first release, and Get On Your Boots was that star first release.  But that doesn’t mean this follow-up can’t do something for you.  For this generation, it will send you on a new road to the ideals of music meets generation, but for older ears, it will send you back to the days when U2 was as heroic as they were in War and as innovative as when they were in Joshua Tree.

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