Super Taranta! : Gogol Bordello : Review : Rolling Stone

"There were never any good old days/They are today, they are tomorrow/It's a stupid thing we say/Cursing tomorrow with sorrow." So swears "Ultimate," the smartest song Gogol Bordello have ever recorded and the smartest song anyone will release this year. It rocks in its own language - a defiantly oversimplified gypsy stomp played loud and then double-timed by a Russian violinist, a Russian accordionist, an Israeli guitarist, an Ethiopian bassist and an American drummer. And its optimism of the will makes the futures imagined by competing alt-prophets seem weak-minded. Having kicked off in high, Super Taranta! soars for three songs before settling in to a depth-charged, raucously quotable musical and philosophical groove. Then it roars back with the hungover yet still besotted "Alcohol," the matter-of-factly unpatriotic "Your Country" and an "American Wedding" that appalls Eugene Hutz by ending. It's an explosive album by a band whose shows wow orgiasts from Seattle to Kiev. Nominally based in Brooklyn, Hutz and his cohort fuse gypsy statelessness and rock-bohemian wanderlust for a restive world citizenry uprooted by war and capital. If you're not an immigrant, they hint, you're lucky, but you also don't know what it is to be alive. So you're doubly lucky that Gogol Bordello have figured out how to tell you.

ROBERT CHRISTGAU

(Posted: Aug 1, 2007)

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Review 1 of 6

4of 5 Stars

What do you get when you cross The Dead Kennedys with Django Rheinhardt? This is a wildly entertaining album. If you enjoy this just half as much as it sounds like this band enjoyed making it, then they'll have enjoyed it twice as much as you, and it sounds like they did! It was all I could do to keep from jumping out of my cubicle's office chair and attempting some Russian folk dances on my desktop. Those who mention seeing them live and it being great fun are surely telling the truth. I can only imagine!

Jan 8, 2008 09:33:35

Review 2 of 6

5of 5 Stars

Best album I've heard in a long, long time. I would've went with 4 1/2 stars but screw it! I've never heard anything like this before! I'll admit it took a while to sink in but was worth it. Just an amazing mix going on. High energy instrumentalists, VERY dynamic vocals, clever, honest and sometimes funny vocals. I can't wait to see these guys live. Youtube em' for some great live clips and interviews with Eugene Hutz (they're singer).

Dec 21, 2007 18:36:05

Review 3 of 6

3of 5 Stars

They're better live. Highly recommended in fact. But I have to think that this record won't stand the test of time. I don't see this group evolving much. Their last record, "Gypsy Punks: Underdog World Strike" was much better. Hope that wasn't their career peak, but from here, it looks like they're sliding!

Sep 10, 2007 16:58:30

Review 4 of 6

Not Rated

Jake: We're all sorry everybody in the world isn't stupid enough for you. Now have a lollipop or something. Calm down.

Aug 26, 2007 10:43:58

Review 5 of 6

4of 5 Stars

Christgau never ceases to amaze me. His reviews are so completely packed with over-wrought brain diarrhea that I always arrive at the end thinking "...and yet, somehow I haven't learned anything at all about the music." Without seeing the name at the bottom beforehand, I immediately knew it was Christgau after seeing the part about how Gogol has recorded "the smartest song anyone will release this year". Man... I thought the days of self-appointed Gods of Musical Knowledge were over, I was sorely mistaken.

Marvel at the frequency and utterly misguided emptiness of his language: "a defiantly oversimplified gypsy stomp played loud..." for all of the vocabulary and social commentary in his reviews, they seldom amount to more than empty calories. I've got news for you: bands don't write simple songs to be defiant.

"And its optimism of the will makes the futures imagined by competing alt-prophets seem weak-minded." - Try to find any kernel of inspiration or information in this sentence! Christgau does the incredible here by crystallizing the entire stereotype of the arrogant, nerve-grating, self-enamored and utterly vacant "intellectual" into a few words.

Aug 10, 2007 02:35:22

Review 6 of 6

5of 5 Stars

Only 4 stars, what are you on? This is how Joe Strummer's Mescalleros should have evolved, they are absolutely brilliant. Seen them twice at festivals and will be seeing them twice in December. The RS review was, however, very good.

Cheers

Jul 29, 2007 09:52:48

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