"Always Ascending" is the fifth studio album by Scottish indie rock band Franz Ferdinand. It was released on 9 February 2018 through the Domino Recording Company. It is the band's first non-collaborative album in over four years, following Right Thoughts, Right Words, Right Action (2013). It is also their first album to feature new member Julian Corrie, who joined shortly after the departure of Nick McCarthy. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from critics, the album received an average score of 75, based on 15 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".