\n
![](\"https:\/\/cdn.i-scmp.com\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/1280x720\/public\/d8\/images\/canvas\/2025\/11\/26\/83ac8fb7-4b7e-4c66-93b8-b9451b865707_fe0ed43e.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\n<\/p>\n
Universal fears are the major recurring theme in Scottish art rock band Franz Ferdinand\u2019s 2025 album The Human Fear<\/em>. But there is nothing fearful about the group\u2019s musical approach as the members get deeply personal and bravely vulnerable.<\/p>\n \u201c\u2018Hooked\u2019 starts off with the line, \u2018I got the fear, got the human fear, that\u2019s all right\u2019,\u201d says Alex Kapranos, the band\u2019s lead vocalist, lead guitarist and primary songwriter, of the track that was inspired by his own experience with parenthood in 2023.<\/p>\n \u201cThe song is about facing up to those existential fears that we all have and the things that allow us to cope with them.<\/p>\n \u201cI was talking about becoming a father and how those existential fears didn\u2019t disappear, but they seemed irrelevant when compared with the love I felt for this new creature in my life.\u201d<\/p>\n Kapranos adds that he did not initially write the album with a concept, but instead used a spontaneous approach in which one song influenced the next. However, a common theme soon emerged that threaded through all the songs: one of fear, be it of leaving an institution, leaving a relationship or entering a commitment.<\/p>\n In an exclusive interview with the Post, he recalls: \u201cI was talking to Bob [Hardy, bassist] about this and we realised that even though we all experience these fears, the way we respond to them is individual. That\u2019s how we find our personality and humanity.<\/p>\n \u201cThere seemed to be something fascinating about that.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n