Disco's resurgence over the past 10 years, in both indie and dance circles, has had everything to do with its rougher and more minimal edges. From the raw punk-funk of early DFA Records to the more recent trend of stripped-down re-edits, bands and producers of the 2000s excised disco's gaudier, more extravagant traits-- diva vocals, symphonic sweeps of strings and brass-- in favor of grooves and attitude. But NYC disco-pop collective the Phenomenal Handclap Band are swimming against the tide, indulging in disco's excesses and 70s lite-AM ambitions.
Their sophomore album's title, Form & Control, immediately shows the band's strengths and their weakness: It's a smooth, utterly precise study of the formal elements that make disco and electro-pop tick, but with far too little of the body heat that actually gets that stuff going. Instead, the band delivers various pastiches of disco, electro-funk, and period-appropriate pop with an often frosty and detached air-- the sort of vibe that Ladytron pull off with greater charisma, fresher material, and far stronger songwriting.
It's not just the chilly tone that makes PHB's well-crafted grooves fail to ignite, though. It's also the way their songs feel overstuffed, or undecided. With eight people in the band, the temptation to give everybody some, to gild every rhythm with excess layers of vocal harmony and instrumental flourishes must be impossible to resist; the result is songs that don't breathe, disparate parts that rub up against each other and clash as often as they complement, and grooves that don't get the chance to develop to their fullest hypnotic potential.
Unsurprisingly, the best tracks here are the simplest and most straightforward: the rubbery bassline and vampy chorus of "The Right One", the shushing disco beat and marimba/synth line of "Give", neither of which are lost in overly busy arrangements. Conversely, there's "The Unknown Faces at Father James Park" (even its title is overstuffed): The verse is one of the most appealing passages on the entire album, the band's female vocalists trading glassy background chants with a deadpan, staccato lead, but the song derails into a technically impressive but momentum-sapping harmonic chorus.
Either aspect alone could be stretched and variegated into a fine song, but crammed together they somehow stall. There's a disconnect, like a 5th Dimension or a Polyphonic Spree struggling to break out of the beat. (Another odd 70s touch: Several of the songs end by fading out on a refrain rather than resolving, which can have the effect of making them feel unfinished.)
The rift between disco grooves and hippie vocal harmonies plays out on the album level as well. About three-quarters of the way through, the record shifts from dance party to something else: we get the flowery blues funk of "Afterglow", the windy, wide-open guitar twang of "All Cliches", the light rock (and incongruous sitar) of "Mirrors," and the wan vintage pop of "The Attempt". Throw the bombastic, heavy-thudding piano of the title track in here, too. These aren't exactly good songs, but they at least have a sense of purpose.
A good disco act makes a six-minute song feel like half that--or better, makes you want to hear it re-edited out to 10 minutes by some reel-to-reel DJ (that this happened with the best song of PHB's last album, "You'll Disappear", proves that at least they have some decent beats in them). Hardly a song on Form & Control goes substantially beyond the four-minute mark, and yet the whole album drags. Maybe the answer is to let those inner hippies out, and leave the dancefloor to someone else.
