Handclap Band makes the old new again
Phenomenal Handclap Band
FORM & CONTROL
Young songwriters, musicians and producers of today have the advantage of perspective. They can take what they want from the past, bend it, shape it any way they want to.
The Phenomenal Handclap Band is one such band. A six-member, co-ed collective from New York City, the group does a phenomenal job of mining and processing the golden sounds of yesteryear.
The band’s second album, Form & Control, cleverly synthesizes ’60s pop and soul and ’70s disco and prog-rock. The songs, mostly composed by singer-keyboardists Daniel Collás and Sean Marquand, come together in catchy, light-hearted ways. The execution, featuring male and female vocals and multiple keyboards that sound as if they’ve been transported from earlier eras, is technically impeccable.
Laura Marin sings lead for “Following,” the pre-disco, Euro-pop style of which could be some undiscovered Abba recording. Skipping forward to the ’80s, “The Right One” unreels VHS memories of another male-female group, British pop trio Human League. Cascading snyth riffs and fuzz bass enhance the retro fun.
Human League meets Emerson, Lake & Palmer in “The Written Word,” featuring trio vocals by Marin, Collás and singing drummer Patrick Wood. The melodic side of ELP, best heard in the balladry of Greg Lake, appears in “All Clichés.” Unlike ELP, Collás and Marquand are more interested in composing good songs than playing virtuoso solos. That’s a good thing.
The Phenomenal Handclap Band gets back to ’60s psychedelic-rock with “Winter Falls.” And having shown again and again throughout Form & Control what a smart tunesmith he is, Collás bridges the distance between Pink Floyd, pop-savvy Motown soul and such quintessentially melodic American ’60s pop vocal groups as the Turtles in “The Attempt.”
If the Phenomenal Handclap Band can stage performances as fun and well-crafted as the songs and arrangements they create in the studio, they seem destined for greatness.
The Soul Rebels
UNLOCK YOUR MIND
Because their name is so familiar and they’re so active, playing in their hometown of New Orleans and throughout Louisiana as they do, touring nationally and internationally, sharing stages with Arcade Fire, the Roots, Bootsy Collins, Robert Plant, Green Day and many more, it’s difficult to believe that Unlock Your Mind is the first nationally distributed CD from the Soul Rebels.
Released last month by roots music label Rounder Records, Unlock Your Mind captures the mighty Soul Rebels in full strut. Featuring two drummers and six horn players, this band produces a brilliant blast of brass and percussion. Sung and rapped vocals play prominently amidst the group’s mix of traditional brass band jazz, soul, rhythm-and-blues, hip-hop, rock and soul.
Classic New Orleans funk combines with the relatively young cats in the Soul Rebels via the album’s new Mardi Gras song, “Say Na Hey.” Composed by and featuring one of New Orleans’ music masters, Meters guitarist Leo Nocentelli, “Say Na Hey” rings with traditional chant, call-and-response and, inevitably, down in the ground funk. “504,” the album’s most contemporary R&B-style selection, includes Sean C’s vocals, a typically huge brass-ensemble blend and a robust solo from young New Orleans music star Trombone Shorty.
The Soul Rebels, a versatile band that nevertheless always sounds like itself, take a rock direction with the Eurythmics’ “Sweet Dreams Are Made of This.” Opening the song with a nod to New Orleans funeral processions, the guys play a dirge before breaking into an animated celebration. “Sweet Dreams” and more Unlock Your Mind tracks abundantly illustrate the Latin tinge that’s been part of New Orleans music for more than a century. That Latin flavor also infiltrates “We Gon’ Take Your Body,” “Showtime” and “My Time.”
As life-affirming as the Soul Rebels are when using their own formidable resources, the album’s reggae-and-soul title track “Unlock Your Mind,” featuring guest vocalist Cyril Neville, is a high point. The band also gives Stevie Wonder’s “Living For the City” a monumental punch.
Scorpions
COMEBLACK
Scorpions, those German princes of hard rock, took time from their farewell touring to record the amazing Comeblack. While the band originally intended 2010’s Sting in the Tail to be the final Scorpions studio project, inspiration, the guys say, yielded this great encore.
Comeblack, the band states in the liner notes, is a way to say thank you to the fans. The collective message from Scorpions founder and guitarist Rudolf Schenker, singer Klaus Meine, guitarist Matthias Jabs, bassist Pavel Maciwoda and James Kottak adds that Comeblack’s non-original songs are a tribute to the Beatles, Rolling Stones and other ’60s groups that inspired them to play music.
The Scorpions sound anything but ready for retirement in Comeblack. The power, conviction and technical precision in their re-recordings of classic hard-rock Scorpions’ anthems “Rock You Like a Hurricane,” “No One Like You” and post-Iron Curtain power ballad “Wind of Change” show them at the top of their game. In fact, they sound better than ever.
It’s a nice surprise, too, to hear the Scorpions’ great renditions of the Kinks’ “All Day and All of the Night,” T. Rex’s “Children of the Revolution,” John Lennon’s “Across the Universe,” the Rolling Stones’ “Ruby Tuesday” and the Small Faces’ “Tin Soldier.”
The Scorpions’ farewell tour resumes in France in March. For fans who can’t make it to France, Germany, Russia, Morocco, Mexico or South America, there’s also the in-concert Blu-ray disc, Get Your Sting and Blackout – Live in 3D.