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The Juan MacLean, "Less Than Human"
Although this is the debut full-length release from The Juan MacLean,John MacLean is no newbie to recording, performing, or the musicbusiness and all the drugs, partying, and fun that go along with theterritory. It's easy to see how the Juan MacLean has made anexcellent party record.DFA
For the better part of the 1990s he was involved with Six FingerSatellite, a New England-based Sub Pop rock band who had a decentamount of attention, but even MacLean thought that by 1998 the band hadexhausted themselves out. The important thing to note is that theconnection was made with James Murphy, sound engineer for Six FingerSatellite at the time, who us music nerds now know as an irreplacable partof the DFA while the pop world knows him as the dude who sings in that LCDSoundsystem. Without Murphy and the DFA, MacLean says the Juan wouldn'thave been possible.
Less Than Human takes its namesake from a 10" track released onDFA last year, but the song appears nowhere on therecord. The only previously released track is the killer "Give MeEvery Little Thing," released on a split with the Rapture back in2003. This is clearly the album's strongest track, as its bassand synth riffs are beyond powerfully catchy while the lyrics harkenback to the more funk side of the 1970s disco.
The sci-fi tendencies laid forth by 12" singles like "By the Time I Getto Venus" aren't abandoned, as the album is drenched in a retro-futuristicaudio soup. "Tito's Way," theonly other single track included on the album is decent, with anotherfat and far-from-natural sounding synth line, but it's lacking in thehook to put it on the level of the previously released singles. This is the key thing that separates most of the album tracks from thesingles: the catchy hook.
Unfortunately itseems as if MacLean is more comfortable within the confines of the 12",releasing tracks that stretch between five and ten minutes, while a notable amount of thesongs collected here are a bit light, less developed, and, whenthey're at their most brief (three of the ten tracks don't even reach the three-minute mark) are lacking in importance.
By no means does that makes it a bad record. It just becomesbettersoundtrack for keeping in motion around the house—doing chores andmaking dinner—or providing some great car ride or dance party tunes.The two closing tracks, "Crush the Liberation" and "Dance with Me"illustrate this. The bold hooks from before have been completelyabandoned, the lyrics are lazy, unimpressive, seeminglyeffortless, and repeated ad nauseam, set alongside tracks with tinklingpiano noodling put through echoes and delays. Once again it neversounds bad, however, it simply isn't as attention commanding as TheJuan MacLean is perfectly capable of.
Perhaps the DFA could have taken a hint from the LCD release andincluded a second CD of 12" single tracks to accompany this disc, butafter including them all in the mega 3xCD set DFA Compilation #2, it mightbe a little bit overkill. It wouldn't have been a bad decisionthough.
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