The Go! Team: Rolling Blackouts

By Michael Lopez Tue., Feb. 1 2011 at 7:59 AM

Categories: Review Roundup

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The Go! Team - Rolling Blackouts

Fours years makes the heart grow fonder -- in most cases. For Brighton-based indie/positive vibes outfit The Go! Team, those four years were spent crafting yet another upbeat, dance-worthy album. Rolling Blackouts, the band's third effort and first since 2007's Proof Of Youth, sees its release today.

The Go Team's sound is difficult to describe. For starters, there are six members in the band -- one of which, Ninja, combines a mixture of rapping, chanting and singing in her lead singer duties. Hell, the band was strictly a studio effort until Ninja came along to give them a much needed live presence -- not to mention a face for the eclectic band.

"The Power Is On," from 2004's Thunder, Lightning, Strike was recently featured in an NFL Play60 commercial featuring the fucking Atlanta Falcons, giving the band an American presence for those not well-informed of British six-pieces that feature samples of playground chants in their songs.

So what does all this mean for The Go! Team on their third album? Unfortunately, many feel its just more of the same -- a novelty that was fresh back in 2004, yet has now found itself a bit stale.

What the critics are saying:

Spin: Their diverse third release occasionally finds new ways to induce grins: "Secretary Song" puts Deerhoof's Satomi Matsuzaki into a pepped-up 1950s supermarket-aisle soundtrack, and "Yosemite Theme" is so full of purple-mountain majesty that even Stephen Colbert might pilfer it.

BBC Music: There's daring and drive; energy and a restlessness that makes you feel guilty for even contemplating to take a breath. But we know the components, and have learned the formula, it's evident we've heard this before.

The Guardian: Ready to Go Steady is breezy 60s pop, while Best Coast's Bethany Cosentino adds her sweet croon to Buy Nothing Day - but it's all overly familiar...Six years is a long time in pop, and the Go! Team seem to have grown old.

Paste Magazine: What is at first cute in its clusterfucking energy, riding waves of rainbow-tinted creativity, quickly turns grey and mushy. And when they do bother to strip back the layers a bit, it doesn't seem to help.

Rolling Blackouts is out now via Memphis Industries.

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