James Arden checks out the garage rockers latest album.
The Christian rock band from Brighton bring religion to the masses.
Recipe for modern R'n'B album: liberal helpings of guest rappers and an overdose of sexual euphemisms.
With The Go! Team's main man Ian Parton suggesting that Rolling Blackouts could be the band’s swansong, certainly as a touring outfit, fans will be hoping that they’ll at least be going out all guns blazing. Well as you’d expect from this group, it isn’t just guns that are blazing on this record; guitars, synths, trumpets, glockenspiels, doorbells, whistles, typewriters, elevator noises and all manner of electronic witchcraft have been thrown in the mixing pot too.
The record does contain an eclectic mix of alternative rock, funk, and at times more hard-edged hip-hop features (as heard on tracks like ‘T.O.R.N.A.D.O.’ and ‘Apollo Throwdown’), but at its core is an unmistakable cheese-pop theme, which regardless of your musical taste is quite difficult not to be drawn to, to some degree. “Sugar coated chaos”, as the band have put it, is a pretty difficult summation to outdo.
With guest vocalists cropping up left, right and centre, it is quite nice at times to come across more guitar-driven tracks like the all too short ‘Super Triangle’ and ‘The Running Range’ to remind you that you are dealing with a collective group of musicians, and not just a DJ sitting at a computer with a synthesiser, turntable and microphone to hand. It certainly isn’t a repetitive album, reflecting the group’s desire to have the listener never knowing what’s coming next. When a brass section kicks in for the first time in ‘Bust out Brigade’, your brain may feel inclined to tell your ear to do a double-take, and the tribal opening to ‘Yosemite Theme’ comes a tad out of the blue itself. But that isn’t even a patch on the complete non-sequitur that is ‘Lazy Poltergeist’, a slightly discordant instrumental that sounds like a cheap Dictaphone recording of a grade one piano exam. And Dizzee Rascal reckons he’s bonkers.
This lot undoubtedly keeps the listener on their toes, and you won’t feel tempted to hit the stop button half way through down to it being samey. But in a way, I wish it was a bit more homogenous. It might not be the ultra-experimental The Go! Team that we’ve known to date, but jeepers: just listen to ‘Secretary Song’ or the album’s title track, songs with a sort of 60s pop vibe, and try telling me that you wouldn’t love to be cruising down the A38 to Cornwall on a sunny summer’s day, windows down with these blasting out of the stereo. I dare you.
★★★☆☆
Like This? Try The Flaming Lips, At War with the Mystics; MGMT, Congratulations, Gorillaz, Plastic Beach.
You must log in to submit a comment.
