13th September - The Go! Team's Thunder, Lightning, Strike

Artist – Album: The Go! Team – Thunder, Lightning, Strike

Released:  13^th September 2004

Sounds Like: The A-Team meets the Magnificent Seven meets the Jackson 5

I am a happy guy. By my nature I tend to walk around with a big stupid grin on my face. I like to meet new people and discover new places and eat new food and drink new beer. I don’t like people who take themselves too seriously, people who can’t see the good in things and people who have a perma-scowl rather than a perma-smile. I think, due to my sunny disposition, you should excuse me for selecting the delightful, none-funner Thunder, Lightning, Strike over the harrowing, suicidal masterpiece that is Nirvana’s In Utero. Sorry guys, but I just can’t be doing with that sort of self-loathing and hate.

The Go! Team make music that is there to be enjoyed. They specialise in technicolour party anthems, exuberant and boisterous mash ups that conjure up images of boys-own adventures, spaghetti westerns or Eighties US action-adventure TV shows. Like the similarly retro The Avalanches, The Go! Team are dab hands at utilising a multitude of samples in their music, and everyone from Archie Bell & the Drells to The Teardrop Explodes and even the theme from Ironside appear in some form here. Unlike The Avalanches though, the Go! Team merely use these to add flavour to their tracks, and the backbone of each song is performed by a competent real band, featuring, amongst others, two highly charged drummers who seem to be out to destroy their kits and the pocket rocket rapper Ninja, who glides between the Supremes-style chorals to Neneh Cherry-esque raps. Even when the pace slackens, the quality does not, and the album closer, the instrumental Everyone’s a V.I.P. to Someone, is a mini-epic that feels like the soundtrack to a lone ranger galloping across the sun soaked prairies.

Last night I played five-a-side football for my work against a group of lawyers, and my housemate and I used ‘Junior Kickstart’, ‘Ladyflash’ and ‘Bottle Rocket’ as motivators to gee us up beforehand, something that I couldn’t dream of doing with ‘Rape Me’ or ‘Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge on Seattle’. OK, so we lost by a simple ludicrous margin but, you know what, I don’t really mind. After all, I’m a happy guy.

Albumaday... rating:  9/10

1.       Panther Dash – 2:46

2.       Ladyflash – 4:10

3.       Feelgood by Numbers – 1:58

4.       The Power Is On – 3:14

5.       Get It Together – 3:25

6.       Junior Kickstart – 3:35

7.       Air Raid GTR – 0:38

8.       Bottle Rocket – 3:43

9.       Friendship Update – 4:00

10.   Huddle Formation – 3:12

11.   Everyone’s a V.I.P. to Someone – 4:58

 
Listen to ‘Bottle Rocket’: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcU5Kj--uTM

Also released on 13^th September:

1972: Yes – Close to the Edge

Also released on 13^th September:

1993: Nirvana – In Utero

Also released on 13^th September:

2005: Clap Your Hands Say Yeah – Clap Your Hands Say Yeah