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The Go! Team

Liquid Room, Edinburgh
4 stars
It’s the drums you notice first with the Go! Team. Not the sound, as
their relentless pounding pretty much gets submerged by the glorious
sample-heavy hip-hop indie-schmindie din that defines their
pick-and-mix post-modern aesthetic. Rather, it’s the star-shaped
flashing neon lights that adorn the twin bass drums as if they were
bought as a job lot at a Glitter Band fire sale to define the Brighton
sextet’s cartoon image. Not that they’ve needed it, ever since Go! Team
mastermind Ian Parton was forced to form a band to play Thunder,
Lightning, Strike, the Mercury Music Prize nominated debut he cut and
pasted on his Mum’s kitchen table.

With their just released third album, Rolling Blackouts, adopting a
more conventional if just as restless songwriting approach, there’s a
mission accomplished feel to the accompanying tour, and Parton has
already hinted that this may be the last we see of the Go! Team in
their current form. Not that there’s any let-up in energy, as proven by
the force of nature that is Ninja, street-smart lead chanteuse and
ringmistress of the breathless low attention span circus that is the
Go! Team experience. It’s as if the Harlem Revue had been transplanted
to Sesame Street and given an estuary accent.

The panoramic hoedown of Yosemite Theme could be a candidate to
soundtrack the forthcoming Dallas remake, while Buy Nothing Day
conjures up the ghosts of shoegaze past to smear a big daft dayglo grin
all over its FX pedals. On T.O.R.N.A.D.O. Ninja even removes her shoes
just so she can bounce higher. If this really is the Go! Team’s
swan-song, it’s an infectiously joyous way to go out.

The Herald, February 7th 2011

ends

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