So I guess I'm kinda eating my hat along with this CD. I expected and foretold great things for this group's current release. At a glance, just another scrappy dance-punk unit, closer examination revealed stellar songs, peppered with some truly miraculous experimental zest. GoGoGo Airheart has always been one of the better rock bands around for this reason. Their well-attuned synergy is such that Mike Vermillion's serrated, screeching vocals are thrillingly unnerving, rather than simply annoying - much in the fashion of Disco Inferno or This Heat. That incongruous magic hasn't vanished, but the songs on this new joint feel a bit too restrained. Perhaps endless line-up changes have scaled back the whacked-out, free-for-all brilliance of past releases like Love My Life, Hate My Friends and Out Every Window the Snap of Envy & Greed.
Nonetheless, these guys still sound infinitely tighter than, say, John Wilkes Booze. It's just somewhat disappointing that the dusty, grumbling instrumental "Dub II" is about as out-there as the nutjobs that once brought us "Golden Sundays" manage to get. Regardless of personnel changes, I should've expected as much, seeing as how their last release (2002's ExitheUXA) was a step toward a more straightforward jangle punk sound. Even so, there's nothing on here as good as that albums' brazenly pop "My Baby Has a Gang" or the crushing dirge of "Last Goodbye." Though Rats! Sing! Sing! is often boot-stompingly infectious, it irks me somewhat that it tends more toward the straightforwardness of The Clash than the controlled chaos of The Pop Group. The production is certainly keen, lean, and mean -- and the playing ferocious -- but I'm convinced this band can do better.
The most exceptional track for my money would have to be the coptered delirium of "Taxi Up," where Vermillion sounds at his most unhinged. There's a great propulsive chanting going through the workout, along with an urgent, infectious guitar riff, making the tune a definite future staple. Though, many of the songs on here are like jaunty Franz Ferdinand-styled guitar boppers on overdrive, the band has always excelled at this sort of sound. But between and amidst these numbers were whiplash-inducing, chaotic sound miasmas; much like a punkabilly concert on the boardwalk being half drowned out by a neighboring fleet of trilling skee-ball machines.
Yet, one could never call this album streamlined. There's still a lot of manic charm around the edges of these songs, along with some catchy melodies here and there ("Burn It Down", "Shake It Off"). But the eyebrow-raising surprises of their beautifully haphazard back catalogue are more or less absent here. Newcomers to this band should start with Love My Life, Hate My Friends or the 2000 LP that followed to see what I'm talking about. As for the fans/followers, I say give this one a try. It's a pretty kickin' 36-minute platter of taut punk/dub wailing as only GoGoGo Airheart could cook up. Just hope along with me that their next offering (in addition to not being another three years in the coming) brings back some of that old overzealous magic that really separates them from the pack.
1. Rats
2. Lie With the Lamb
3. Burn It Down
4. So Good
5. Love Is...
6. The Big Girl of Beauty
7. Shake It Off
8. Dub II
9. Taxi Up
10. Tin Pie
11. Heart On A Chain
12. Shattered
13. Come To My House
14. Turn Out the Lights
15. Double Bummer
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