Demob Happy

Feelgood by numbers

7/10

I resisted buying this album for a long time as I wrongly judged this to be a fairly unoriginal concept. In fact, on paper, it still is an unoriginal concept - a heady mash-up of 70s samples and breaks - but it is pulled off by a verve and audacity lacking in many of the Brighton collective’s contemporaries. Opener ‘Panther Dash’ pitches Dick Dale-style thrashed surf guitar against frenetic live drumming, harmonica and police sirens. It doesn’t sound so much like a song, but rather an opening credit sequence to a Tarrantino movie. That is part of the pleasure of the album as a whole. The production is rough and cluttered, bursting with the ‘in between’ static and distortion of the samples, that gives it a more organic feeling than if the production was otherwise cleaned up. ‘Ladyflash’ sounds more obviously like the Avalanches in this respect, but in the Australians’ extended absence, this is the best thing they never did. ‘Feelgood by Numbers’ uses ramshackle piano to evoke its dislocated summertime atmospherics, while ‘The Power is On’ is a true original - looped cheerleader chants and heavy breaks reaching a near psychedlic cacophony of sound (a trick repeated later on ‘Huddle Formation’). Unfortunately the album’s quieter moments are also its weakest points, and you feel that the Go! Team need to develop a more sophisticated mellower side to counterbalance the awesome head-rush of the heavier ones. However, overall the sound is much greater than a sum of its parts and is not to be confused with the lame big beat of late 90s acts like Bentley Rythmn Ace.