Franklin underwent significant changes between their early-'90s founding and 1999's self-titled album. Most notably,
Franklin is less guitar-heavy than previous releases, and plays more thoroughly off of the band's post-punk influences -- there's a huge debt owed to the Clash, an equal tendency toward Black Sea-era
XTC, and a general dub and reggae influence that's just as appropriate to the British scene of the early '80s. Once these antecedents are run through the complexity and heaviness of contemporary indie rock, they come out with a rampaging pop quality that's something like some of
Burning Airlines' work -- and
Franklin, as an album, runs through this territory in a smart, unassuming, and highly effective way.