The Go! Team

Imagine if Vince Guaraldi, Ennio Morricone, The Sugar Hill Gang, and '80s TV theme composer Mike Post collaborated on double-dutch jump-rope tunes in an English garage. Then they recorded these buoyant ditties themselves on an old boom box. Now you have a slight approximation of this instantly familiar yet completely original band, The Go! Team.

Thunder, Lightning, Strike, the debut album by The Go! Team, has finally been released stateside after making a lot of underground and overseas noise. It's the kind of music you would expect from children weaned on the teat of Nintendo, the Internet, and MP3s. Rich, detailed and dense in a caffeinated way, it embraces many different styles. A filmmaker, maybe Hitchcock, once said film is like life with all the boring parts cut out. The Go! Team applies that same aesthetic, taking just the best bits, and somehow it works. Ian Parton did it all (drums, horns, piano, samples, harmonica) in his bedroom till he had live gigs booked, and needed a real band: Picture the scene from the Peanuts Christmas special where all the kids (and Snoopy) are playing instruments and dancing to "Linus and Lucy." This is feel good music of the highest order.

The Go! Team achieve the not insignificant task of sounding nostalgic yet fresh. Lead vocalist, Ninja, raps and sings on two of the highlights here, "Ladyflash" and the fired-up "Huddle Formation." Many of the tracks are instrumental, but say all they need to with just a title ("Everyone 's a V.I.P. to Someone"). Sure it sounds like it was recorded in a tin can, but that's part of the charm. - Jeff Kamin

The Go! Team earn their exclamation point. Their debut album, Thunder, Lightning, Strike, is a refreshing blast of Day-Glo bubble-dance-pop that could crack a smile on even the most frozen of faces. The sound of the record is a slap in the face to audio purists; it sounds like it was recorded on a truck stop-quality cassette in a very damp, crowded basement. The feel of the record is like a slap on the arse of complacent music-makers everywhere. A wake-up call to arms; a "can you top this?" The group whips up a clattering, exhilarating collage of Northern soul horns meshed with sampledelic beats, plangent harmonica, lyrical piano melodies that bring Martin Duffy's work with Felt to mind (especially on "Feelgood By Numbers"), hard-charging '70s police drama funk, old-school hip-hop, and sincere indie rock. Everyone from Marley Marl to Sonic Youth is roped in to be borrowed from. It's all thrown together with a glorious sense of what works and what doesn't. There isn't a single misstep on the record and it is hard to pick favorites because every song is so blindingly good. Still, if pressed, one might pick "Ladyflash" because it encapsulates everything that is brilliant about the band, from the "Tighten Up" samples to the wonderful vocals (by the one-woman wrecking crew Ninja) that are equal parts playground hip-hop crossed with a sassy girl group to the melody to the two drummers beating the holy crap out of their kits. Find a better song than this from 2004 and you are lying. Well, maybe "Huddle Formation," a more straightforward song with the same double dutch vocals, only this time married to bracing New Order playing the hits of Phil Spector in a wind tunnel musical backing. But again any song would do, the banjo-driven epic ballad "Everyone's a V.I.P. to Someone," the funkier than Ike & Tina "Bottle Rocket," the theme to the best day of your life "Friendship Update." It's pin the tail on the donkey where everywhere you stick the pin gets you a prize. The Go! Team is widescreen in a pan-and-scan world, a sparkling rejoinder to purists and spoilsports everywhere and more fun than recess on the last day of school. Cinematic, fantastic, and essential to all who want their music larger than life and rambunctious, Thunder, Lightning, Strike is the kind of record that makes you glad to be alive. What could be better than that? [The answer is the U.S. release of Thunder, Lightning, Strike! Thanks to the clout and generous pockets of Columbia Records, the band was able to issue the album with virtually all samples intact instead of revamping the album as they at one point thought they would have to. In addition to that happy circumstance, there are two new tracks inserted into the track list. "We Just Won't Be Defeated"'s schoolyard charts, crime-show horns, and loose-as-a-goose beats place it firmly, gloriously in the realm of the album, but "Hold Yr Terror Close"'s indie pop sweet piano-and-voice duet provides a tender surprise and a calm respite before the thrill of "Huddle Formation." Now more than ever, the Go! Team is the perfect remedy to the faceless hordes of emo rockers, self-impressed rappers, and interchangeable neo-new wavers.] ~ Tim Sendra, All Music Guide