CD Reviews

The Go! Team

Proof of Youth | Sub Pop

By MIKAEL WOOD | October 22, 2007

3.0 Stars

The Go! Team, from England, call their sophomore full-length Proof of Youth for good reason, but they needn’t have gone to the trouble: these ebullient dance-pop collagists left no doubt about their baby-faced bona fides on their rah-rah debut, Thunder, Lightning, Strike — which after trickling into this country first as a download and then as an import scored a one-off Columbia re-release in 2005. (Perhaps some Sony exec has a nephew with a blog.) Bandleader Ian Parton says Proof of Youth (the Go! Team’s first effort for Sub Pop) has more live instrumentation than the mostly sample-based Thunder, Lightning, Strike. But that doesn’t mean the new one offers any less of the outfit’s signature Saturday-morning chaos. “Doing It Right” rides a go-go garage-soul beat and throbs with salty acid-Motown horns; “Titanic Vandalism” condenses the soundtracks of Ocean’s Eleven, Twelve, and Thirteen down to four minutes of heist-movie adrenaline; “Fake ID” is Shonen Knife as fronted by Kathleen Hanna. Parton loves the shit out of treble, and that can tire the shit out of your ears. Still, his crafty postmodern bubblegum is a treat well worth chewing.

The Go! Team + Matt and Kim | Paradise Rock Club, 967 Comm Ave, Boston | October 25 | 617.931.2000

Related: Cheerleaders of the pack, Review: The Go! Team | Rolling Blackouts, Chop shop pop, More

Topics: CD Reviews , The Go! Team, The Go! Team

| More

ARTICLES BY MIKAEL WOOD

THE CHEMICAL BROTHERS | FURTHER | July 07, 2010
Astralwerks (2010)

DEVO | SOMETHING FOR EVERYBODY | July 01, 2010
Given the theory of de-evolution these Ohio brainiacs began expounding more than 30 years ago, it makes a sad kind of sense that Devo's first album since 1990's Smooth Noodle Maps offers such a charmless, base-level version of the band's synth-addled new wave.

TAIO CRUZ | ROKSTARR | June 24, 2010
When Taio Cruz sings, "I can't live without you," in "Take Me Back," pop-song conventions tell us he's referring to a lover.

THE FUTUREHEADS | THE CHAOS | June 16, 2010
"I wish that I could stop the noise," sings Barry Hyde not long into The Chaos . It sure doesn't seem that way.

BETTYE LAVETTE | INTERPRETATIONS: THE BRITISH ROCK SONGBOOK | June 01, 2010
Bettye LaVette’s previous two albums had titles that required a little digging to unpack.