Men
Women and Children drop the dance bomb
By
Angela O’Brien
Online Forty-Niner
Staff Writer
Don’t bash your mom’s old disco records quite yet, because there
is a new mega-party sextet ready to give you a run for your dancing shoes.
Break out that mirror ball because New York’s own Men Women & Children
may have started out as a joke, but now their music is a pleasurable listening
experience.
Guitarist Todd Weinstein spun Men Women & Children off from the post-hardcore
band Glassjaw right after their split in 2004. Not wanting to take music serious
any longer, Weinstein developed what one could interpret as a exciting neo-pop-disco-funk
movement. Tagging along with Weinstein, Men Women & Children are TJ and
Rick Penzone, Nick Conceller and David Sullivan-Kaplan.
Men Women & Children dropped their debut self-titled album in stores March
21. Unfortunately for them, Men
Women & Children must live in the shadow of the other Glassjaw spin-off
band, Head Automatica, who released their debut “Decadence” in
early 2005. Men Women & Children, however, will have no problem becoming
an indie-sensation in 2006.
Both spin-offs implement dance elements into their pop-rock sound, but that
is where the similarities divide.
Head Automatica has remained stagnant in a dance-punk haze; however Men Women & Children
execute funk, rhythms and electro fundamentals into the 12-song debut.
The first track on the album, “Dance in My Blood,” exploits a simple
infectious drum beat forcing one to bop his or her head unconsciously back
and forth. Vocalist TJ Penzone floods the listener with the contagious chorus, “You
don’t need a reason to get on the dance floor/and we can get it on and
on all night long.”
Combined with a clap track, synthesizers and samples, it feels as though the
listener immediately immersed into the middle of a New Year’s Eve party
upon first play.
That party atmosphere does not end throughout the album. “Photosynthesis” would
have been the perfect intro song for those old ’70s Game Show Network
reruns like Match Point or the Newlywed Game.
In “Messy,” the band even provides its listeners with an original
rendition of what could be a boy-rock anthem (“They say boys are messy/But
you know girls just make a mess/So we don’t care if we get dirty/We ain’t
here for cleanliness”). Men Women & Children incorporate the utmost
simplistic lyrics, yet remain able to indulge in quirky, amusing entertainment
for their listeners.
There cannot be a pseudo-disco record without a token song with its own dance
movement. Luckily Men Women & Children did not overlook this with the song “Monkey
Monkee Men”—complete with a monkey-laugh sample at the start. The
listener can almost imagine and imitate a synchronized shimmy by that song’s
chorus (“Give me your right hand/But keep your left hand free/Let’s
run in circles/Yeah let’s make history”).
Men Women & Children is currently on tour on the East Coast with the Format,
Motion City Soundtrack and Metric. They will be heading overseas to Europe
with Panic! at the Disco in April.
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