The Go! Team - RollingBlackouts

Fri 4th Mar, 2011 in Music Reviews

The sound of British indie group, The Go! Team has always been intriguing with a hybrid sound of garage band fuzz, electronic dance pop and freestyle hip-hop. Their third release Rolling Blackouts continues on this theme, but with a definite variety in overall genre choices this time around. A noticeable trait of their recording, is the dense, cluttered layering of sounds that create a really chaotic disarray of tracks, which is enjoyable for some, but could really be seen as too much to focus on for it to be truly appreciated.

As with any ‘indie’ album, there are a few commercially accessible songs on this album that would definitely be well received by a live audience or radio listeners alike. This comes in the form of Buy Nothing Day, which features Bethany Cosentino of surf rock group Best Coast. This is a track that incorporates both the cluttered style of The Go! Team and the summer oriented guitar work of Best Coast, all merged together to create a pop based high-spirited dance track.

There is a prominent layering of brass instrumentation within the majority of tracks on this album, Bust-Out Brigade and Super Triangle being two of those songs. Being entirely instrumental, they star some powerful brass sections, whilst being accompanied by smooth flowing synths and pulsating drum lines.

The overall standout for the album is surprisingly the closing number Back Like 8 Track, which is the most consistent and enjoyable song on the album. There is a strong beat to dance along to and there is a lot less clutter and the direction of the track is clear to follow and keep up with, unlike a lot of the other tracks which take a random direction into unknown territory.

The artwork for Rolling Blackouts has a layout similar to that of a Japanese special edition album. This is suited perfectly to the majority of this album, as it is the sort of music you would associate with a Japanese anime program or video game.

Rolling Blackouts is certainly not for the light-hearted, The Go! Team’s energy drink inspired tracks are a potential seizure warning and should be handled with care, but for those who can manage a good old rave, then definitely jump on their rollercoaster without haste.