The Go! Team: Thunder, Lightning, Strike : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

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Jump-ropers of the world, unite and take over. The Go! Team create the long-awaited fusion of Sonic Youth and the Spice Girls, a six-person cartoon-crazy funky bunch from the English town of Brighton. On their debut, Thunder, Lightning, Strike, they blend guitar rock, bubblegum funk, Charlie Brown piano, harmonica, horns, loads of samples and Sugar Hill-style femme rapping from MC Ninja. As you might surmise from their Speed Racer name, the Go! Team thrive on 1970s kiddie sunshine vibes, from the manic playground chant "Huddle Formation" to the S.W.A.T.-tastic horn blasts of "Junior Kickstart" to the moody somebody-come-and-play instrumental "Get It Together." And it's just thirty-five minutes long, which means you can listen while watching Scooby-Doo on mute. Thunder, Lightning, Strike was hailed as a pop masterpiece when it came out in the U.K. late last year, but clearing all the samples held up its U.S. release until now. Wait no longer.

ROB SHEFFIELD

(Posted: Oct 20, 2005)

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Review 1 of 2

4of 5 Stars

Buy the UK version if you can find it. It doesn't have "We Just Won't Be Defeated" or "Hold Yr Terror Close," but their label couldn't clear all the samples for the US release and they had to do a lot of rewriting, most notably on Junior Kickstart, Bottle Rocket, and Huddle Information. The original versions of Bottle Rocket and Huddle Information are at least 10,000 times better.

Sep 6, 2006 10:26:57

Review 2 of 2

4of 5 Stars

How much can music expand without being entirely self-posessed? It’s a question that will plague this industry until the history of the 1960s will be undone—either by the apocalypse or someone actually figures out what else can be done with a studio. The answer this brit-pop experiment has decided on is a clash of forces and a giant eclectic step forward in what bubble gum in the twenty first century should sound like. The brass soul of the 1970s is staged behind a rampant and gritty piano/harmonica indie ensemble—issuing warm and earthy production unheard since Jerry Wexler’s golden age at Capitol Records (see Aretha Franklin’s Lady Soul or The Genius of Ray Charles). The sampling here can rival the magnitude and volume of The Beastie Boys' Paul’s Boutique, and in it’s own unique mixtures doesn’t land far from that target. 

It’s hard to tell if Thunder, Lightening, Strike is an elaborate pop culture half-joke, or well intended emotional, multi-decade melting pot of healthy instrumentals and urban cheer anthems. Regardless, an incredible journey in either direction, it might be just the recipe to bridge the gaps between a dominating hip hop culture, a catering pop collective, and an invisible fragmented rock n’ roll sub-culture. Without being cautiously noisy and weird, Thunder is everything the literate may deem cool and the illiterate may deem listenable. Hands down the happiest most up beat record in a day in age where the socially conscious are struggling for captivating protest songs and the rest wallow in self-pity. Leave it to trippy brits to see the sun shining in on a troubled industry and troubled world.

Dec 5, 2005 23:14:32

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