**1/2 Robi Rob

ROBI ROB'S CLUBWORLD

(Columbia)

Robi Rob turns out to be Robert Clivilles, the surviving half of the Clivilles-Cole dance music partnership that was C&C Music Factory. In its last phase C&C had lost its edge and even its taste as club music deepened and darkened into "hard house" and "traxx," styles with little of the pop melody and vocal surface glitter associated with C&C's best. Now on his own after Cole's untimely 1995 death, Clivilles has adopted into Clubworld many of the hooky gimmicks (streaky voice dubs, big-eared house beats, stubborn bass breaks) that render hard house and traxx ferocious to the max. But except for the tempestuous "I Live," his songs lack the rhythmic grace that makes ferocious house feel sweet to the touch. His beats clomp and shove, unrelieved by melody except in "Shake That Body" and "Make That Money," where Ya Kid K (the voice of Technotronic) nicely raps the bad news.

-- Michael Freedberg