The Go! Team
Rolling Blackouts
Release Date: Feb 1, 2011
Genre(s): Pop/Rock, Alternative/Indie Rock, Alternative Pop/Rock, Indie Rock, Indie Electronic
Record label: Memphis Industries
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Album Review: Rolling Blackouts by The Go! Team
Very Good, Based on 17 Critics
Based on rating 5/5
Few Brit-pop bands could soundtrack an NFL apparel ad, but this Brighton, England crew's pom-pom waving spirit fit one fine. The naïve exuberance underpinning their mash-up of marching-band funk, jump-rope rap chants and indie-pop could feel forced by now, but their third disc is as cute and tunefully muscular as ever. Mastermind Ian Parton dials back the globalist hip-hop of 2007's Proof of Youth for cut-and-paste pop that's more overtly songful.
Based on rating 82%%
From the first hyperkinetic moments of 2004’s Thunder, Lightning, Strike, The Go! Team’s dense collages of bubbly garage-funk hit listeners like a cotton-candy cocktail. The sextet’s third album showcases a more conventional creative process—ringleader Ian Parton wrote songs on guitar rather than grafting together unlicensed samples-—but still sticks close to its bread-and-butter of frantic dance-punk and chipper twinkle-pop. Bombastic horns compete with sirens and steamroller drums on “Bust-Out Brigade”; a pre–Best Coast Bethany Cosentino assists on the jangly “Buy Nothing Day”; and there’s no better distillation of the band’s appeal than “Yosemite Theme,” a loping summer-afternoon jaunt with Charlie Brown piano chords and euphoria to spare.
Based on rating 8/10
If the Go! Team’s second album, Proof of Youth, sounded like they were remaking their debut, Thunder, Lightning, Strike, Rolling Blackouts sounds like they are remaking Proof of Youth. Like that record, this is filled with guest appearances, great songs, and a sense of collaboration that was missing from the sample-based first record. However, while Proof had a few weak points, Blackouts has practically no flaws at all.
Based on rating 4/5
The Go! Team - Rolling Blackouts THE GO! TEAM play the Opera House on April 10. See listing. Rating: NNNN Looking for a boost that will rocket you out of the winter blues? The Go! Team's youthfully peppy third album should do the trick. On opening track T.O.R.N.A.D.O., Ninja gets down with her bad self in a sassy hip-hop kind of way, instantly kicking the 13-track album into a high gear that rarely tapers off.
Based on rating 4.0/5
Review Summary: The Go! Team deal more indie pop dropkicks.They may seem like the perfect summer troupe, the kind of thing that’d give Brighton pier (whichever one remains) a bit of sparkle, but deep down you know you’re glad The Go! Team is releasing this now rather than four months down the line. If you don’t have anything new to gorge on as you come to terms with this 2011 thing, then Ninja and co. can give you everything at once in this neat, not-so-little package.
Based on rating B+
In an era of hyperconsumption, this English ensemble reminds us why overindulgence is fun: They rap, they wail, they bang on triangles, and they never, ever stop dancing. Raiding a cornucopia of styles from garage rock to hip-hop, the Go! Team?s third full-length, Rolling Blackouts, is a breathless mix of scrappy guitars, girl-group harmonies, and funky horns. It might seem nostalgic if it didn?t sound so now.
Based on rating 7.5/10
You have to wonder if Ian Parton ever regrets naming his recording project/collective the Go! Team, let alone affixing it with an exclamation point for guaranteed bonus exuberance. Few bands have gone to such great lengths to forge a connection between their name and their sound. Since its inception, the group has reconstructed sounds that are all about inspiring motion-- cheerlander chants, rollerskate jams, breakdance beats, cop-show chase themes, 90s mosh-pit rock-- into a brass-blasted wall of squall.
Based on rating 7/10
I definitely count myself among the ranks of those that found the Go! Team’s sophomore album, Proof of Youth, underwhelming. By adding the live performance’s full band element and bringing Ninja on as full-time member, the band seemed to sacrifice a little bit of their charm. What seemed really neat as a sample-based sound didn’t translate as well to my ears with a bunch of real people doing it.
Based on rating 6.2/10
After a four year interim, The Go! Team signals their much-awaited return to the long player format with, appropriately, a hilarious block of tape hiss—storming out of the gate with their joyously cacophonous lead single “T. O. R.
Based on rating 6/10
In a recent interview with The Guardian it was put to The Go! Team founder, Ian Parton, that the band burst onto the scene with such a well-defined aesthetic, they may struggle to break free of the blueprint they’d created. It’s certainly a theory with legs - debut album Thunder, Lightning, Strike was a breath of fresh air upon release: cut and paste sampling, Double Dutch chants, a healthy dose of nostalgia and enormous fun. When second album Proof of Youth arrived showing few signs of progression, responses were lukewarm at best.
Based on rating 3.0/5
With Rolling Blackouts, the U.K.‘s most stylish avant-pop renegades continue doing for indie what Tarantino does for cinema, not so much making a case for the tastefulness of their gloriously low-brow obsessions as obliterating the idea of taste altogether. Like Sleigh Bells, Girl Talk, and M.I.A., the Go! Team’s aesthetic is radically inclusive, which makes sense for a band that prefers sound collision to sound collage. If one’s interest in a sample extends only to how cool it will sound with about a dozen others piled on top of it, then the criteria for inclusion need not be exceedingly high.
Based on rating C+
For The Go! Team, their music has always been about the groove. They make tracks chock full of rhythms and melodies unlike anyone else in the business. A combination of hypnotic keys, drum blasts, horns, and carefully used samples build into songs that shouldn’t work by any sense of logic, yet they do anyway. Rolling Blackouts, their third full-length album, isn’t a revolutionary change for the band but it does show a sense of growth that deepens their trademark sound.
Based on rating 4/10
Imagine your coolest friend. Now imagine, over PBRs at your local watering hole, he gets a phone call. His ring tone? The crazy frog. Now, imagine your horror. Sure he’s the same person, but how do you account for this terrible gap in taste? Welcome to the new Go! Team album. For their third ….
Based on rating 2/5
Back in 2005, when Brighton-based sextet the Go! Team's debut album Thunder, Lightning, Strike was nominated for the Mercury Music prize, their competition came from the likes of Hard-Fi, Kaiser Chiefs and the Magic Numbers. Against such a pallid backdrop, their neon blast of ramshackle pop stood out a mile. Fast-forward six years and with only one other album to their name – 2007's disappointing Proof of Youth – their mix of old school hip-hop, indie guitars and restless playground-style chants seems slightly stagnant.
Based on rating 1.5/5
So wearing are [a]The Go! Team[/a] in their relentless wilful eclecticism, their grindingly annoying playground chants and their bursts of trapped-wasp hyperactivity, that it seems remarkable that this is only their third album – maybe their crate-digging inanity somehow has the power to make time stretch. [b]‘Rolling Blackouts’[/b] sees them doing what [a]The Go! Team[/a] do: flailing and yelping like meth-addicted Energiser bunnies, which, as you may have figured, is not a compliment. At least, on the bug-eyed likes of [b]‘TORNADO’[/b] and [b]‘Bust Out Brigade’[/b], they sound like they’re enjoying themselves, but if you’re not, then that’s kind of a criticism too.
Opinion: Excellent
Most recently, the town I live in was in a newfound shock over being struggled with record-low temperatures in the single digits. And, with a downfall of heavy snow, the town was tagged as being under a ‘state of emergency.’ Mostly, this was due to a town unaccustomed to such cold weather with freezing precipitation and, at one point, the electric company declared itself in a state of emergency and much of the town’s residents were placed under a ‘rolling blackouts’ schedule. Electricity was randomly shut off during the week’s evenings and during four-hour stages; it was an interesting experience that caused a lot of contemplative feelings.
Opinion: Fairly Good
Album three from the Brighton sextet treads a similar stylistic path to previous LPs. Reef Younis 2011 It’s always been pretty difficult to dislike The Go! Team and their uplifting jacked-on-E-numbers brand of boisterous playground vocals, busy handclaps and infectious sunshine optimism. It’d be like hating a school play for the unconvincing acting, or not cracking a smile at a winning Only Fools and Horses joke you’ve seen and heard several times before.There’s an inherently inoffensive quality to Ian Parton and his merry band of cohorts, but The Go! Team have always offered more than just good clean fun.
'Rolling Blackouts'
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