For the past couple of years, Aeroplane have been the best kind of music geek secret. A pop-disco production duo from Belgium, Aeroplane have released a sporadic but endlessly enjoyable stream of singles, remixes, and collaborations since 2007. It was a bit heartbreaking when Vito De Luca and Stephen Fasano announced their breakup this summer; they cited artistic differences (De Luca will carry on as Aeroplane). We Can't Fly will make you believe those artistic differences were real. A schizophrenic and ultimately confused record, We Can't Fly abandons Aeroplane's airtight constructions for loose, haughty tracks that are as unclassifiable as they are messy.
We Can't Fly has the feel of a record that's to be everything to everybody-- hit receptacle, compendium of past works, exploration-- and as such ends up being nothing. There are splinters of excellence: the title track weaves an unexpectedly skankin' guitar part into gospel chants, big-rock piano bridges, and miles of keyboards. It's the antithesis of so many disco-as-savior anthems; you will nod and chant to our collective failure. "Good Riddance" and "Without Lies"-- a strange country amble and a sassy pop gem, respectively-- suggest the range and diversity of Ze Records (a clear influence), though "Good Riddance" mostly serves to remind that those Mutant Disco comps had some real clunkers.
The misses miss big, and perplexingly. "I Don't Feel" splits the difference between Guitar World riffing and Patti LaBelle to disastrous effect. "The Point of No Return" auditions for Top Gun montages past and future; "Fish in the Sky" for Bowie's mid-90s blind spot. This from a band who had shown commendable restraint-- no wailing divas or 22-minute Kraut-funk jams; just tight, languorous bodyrock. It's not that these songs are gregarious, silly, and overstuffed-- we suspected Aeroplane had that in them-- it's that they are charmlessly so. "I Don't Feel" will fit most people's definitions of Bad Music, but more troubling is the existence of a giant, wailing barnburner that acts dressy and prim. Aeroplane aren't big personalities or great wits, so when they jostle and play it always feels like the joke's on us.
Aeroplane seem to know a bit about artifice-- the serrated hook of "Without Lies" imagines a boring world without artists-- but We Can't Fly doesn't see them inhabiting unexpected personas or adopting new voices. It feels like fucking around, like a definitively non-definitive remnant of a partnership. We Can't Fly's stylistic knuckleballs lack just about everything we'd grown to love about Aeroplane: namely luxurious grooves and effortless cool.
