Brit audio adventurers The Go! Team return with a new album after a three-year hiatus. By Paula Yeoman.
The Go! Team is back and there is no mistaking it. The raucous rockers from Brighton go for the jugular on their latest album, Rolling Blackouts, kicking off with a frenzied blast of old-school hip-hop on the opener T.O.R.N.A.D.O.
Frontman Ian Parton insists there was no other way to mark the return of one of the most energetic bands in Britain after a three-year break.
"It made sense really," says Parton. "If you're going to start an album you have to start an album, don't you?"
It's the third full-length offering from The Go! Team, which burst on to the indie music scene in the UK in 2004 with the Mercury Prize-nominated Thunder, Lightning, Strike.
The band's no-holds-barred formula, which spans hip-hop and 70s funk to garage rock and frantic pop, has earned them a reputation as audio adventurers. And, remarkably, The Go! Team's sound is as fresh now as it was then.
Parton, however, hopes that people aren't just picking up on the "freshness" of the album but also recognising the sextet's developments.
"It's an album I couldn't have made six years ago. I think it's a bit more ambitious and it feels wider. It's less bedroomy, but it still has its roots in lo-fi," he says.
"And I like the idea of difference of scale - that a song can shrink down just to a single piano but then it can kick back in and it can feel epic, like you're in a desert or something. I also like the idea of an album being all over the shop and you not knowing what's coming next - [whether it's] decades and genres."
Parton is conscious of the fact that a band as eclectic in sound as The Go! Team runs the risk of crossing from the quirky into the ridiculous.
"I am always trying to get this balance between cheekiness without it going into sickliness. It's a real fine line, but it's a line worth pursuing."
Parton's proved that the most shambolic of albums can also sound pretty damn sweet.
The Go! Team's latest album, Rolling Blackouts, is out now.
