★★☆☆☆
Hang is an ambitious, original record, but an extremely irritating one too. Foxygen — former Los Angeles school friends Sam France and Jonathan Rado — may be currently residing in the cult act file, but they have somehow found the budget to record the eight disco/glam rock/camp vaudeville numbers on here with a 40-piece orchestra, leading to all manner of soaring strings, funky brass sections and thunderous kettle drums.
The problem is that the songs at the heart of all the grandiosity don’t make a great deal of sense. The shadow of Sparks hangs over the pomp of Avalon, and Sam France does a decent Frank Sinatra impression on an empowerment anthem called Rise Up, but you are left with the image of Foxygen rifling a musical dressing-up box and hastily pulling together outfits without knowing quite why they’re doing it. Is it an elaborate joke, an insincere take on the history of American music, an exercise in irony? The Bowie-like America would suggest so, but it’s hard to care one way or the other. (Jagjaguwar)