THE GO! TEAM thunder, lightning, strike

For my money, this is one of the most impressive debut albums of the past decade...

You know how sometimes you can wake up and you just feel great? There’s no explanation for it but you can’t wait to get out of the front door and taste the day ahead? Well Thunder, Lightning, Strike is that feeling distilled into one neat little compact disc. It’s the most infectiously happy set out of sounds you’ll hear this year.

‘Feelgood By Numbers’ pipes up sounding like Schroeder from Peanuts playing a rambling piano line over shuffling little percussive beats. Then there’s the giddy harmonica on ‘Panther Dash’ which calls to mind Johnny Marr-era The The if they’d ever let their hair down. Not enough for ya? Then try ‘Bottle Rocket’ for size. It’s like a coked up Eminem rapping the script from Herbie Goes Bananas over a warped Hanna-Barbera theme tune.

Everything is infused with the same wide-eyed delirium that St Etienne had when they first surfaced with Fox Base Alpha in the early 90s. The Go! Team also share that band’s slightly kitsch quality (it’s no surprise to discover they’re from Brighton, coastal playground of London’s gay crowd). But while there are samples and shades of days-gone-by sprinkled everywhere, Thunder, Lightning, Strike is still very much a record of the here and now. It’s time to let the love in people, The Go! Team has arrived.

If Thunder, Lightning, Strike was a place it would be Bedford Falls from It’s A Wonderful Life: where everything is perfect.



Article by Andy McLean. Copyright held by author.
First published in The Brag, Sydney, 2004.
Thunder, Lightning, Strike is available through Shock Records.