Don't expect to see Franz Ferdinand looking over their shoulders.

As bassist Bob Hardy says, he and the rest of the Glasgow pop band are looking forward, not back -- or rather not for the backlash which eventually comes when you're one of the most heralded, awarded and fashionable bands to come out of the U.K. in the past decade.

"It's not something I'd be surprised to see," says Hardy, admitting it didn't seem to happen with the group's latest You Could Have It So Much Better.

"But you have to be reminded whenever you're reading any kind of press -- if it's really, really good press or really, really bad press -- you don't believe either, then you keep your sanity.

"If you read a review saying 'saviours of British music' and you go around believing it, it's just as damaging if you read a review saying 'worst band ever' and go around believing it."

Saviours of British music? Well, maybe not, but there are many who would agree Franz Ferdinand, who play the Corral tonight, were a refreshing entry into the scene when they arrived with their self-titled debut two years ago.

There's certainly no doubt they helped kickstart an entire resurgence in '80s-flared guitar rock, but Hardy downplays the role the quartet played.

"I think the fact that those bands have arrived after us just goes to show that it would have happened anyway -- with or without us," he says. "So many bands were playing in the provinces of the U.K. and buying guitars and messing around and eventually it was going to break through."

Attribute Hardy's unwillingness to buy into the hype to his Glaswegian upbringing -- he certainly does. He thinks the scene that has birthed such notables as Teenage Fanclub, Belle & Sebastian and Mogwai, was the perfect training ground for keeping it, as the kids say, real.

"There's no (b.s.) in Glasgow," he says. "You're so far away from London that people don't really care to jump on bandwagons so easily -- it's more genuine."

And, apparently, more inspiring.

As to the previous comment of looking ahead, Franz Ferdinand show no signs of, well, not, having already written a half dozen new songs -- they may preview a couple tonight at the Corral -- despite a sophomore CD that's barely six months old.

"I think if you've got the energy and the interest to do it," Hardy says, "then you should do it as soon as possible before you lose the desire to do it."