another dose of red cordial and worked them into an innovative pop frenzy. /blurb--> The Go! Team have appealed to a wide audience since the release of their debut album Thunder Lightning Strike and considering the hyperactive pop they make is layered with plenty of funk and danceable, Public Enemy style hip hop it’s not such a surprise. Proof of Youth is their second LP and the anticipation that has built for it is justified. On top of everything you may have already heard about it, Proof of Youth is just that, an album which is daring and bold in a way that is rarely seen from more seasoned bands and artists.

There’s a lot about The Go! Team’s music that can be likened to the work of Beck in the early to mid nineties. Where Beck was channelling his love of eighties hip hop in an ambitious attempt at resurrecting folk music for modern audiences, The Go! Team are working the same hip hop style into their own melodic pop. Thankfully, the hip hop influence is consistent through the album. So much so, in fact, that when Chuck D himself guests in Flashlight Fight, you’ll think he was there the whole time. Singles Grip Like a Vice and Doing it Right have proven their wide appeal and the album is not about to run out of such ball breaking hits.

As sweet as the melodic pop element of the album is, any veneer of innocence it may have provided is well and truly tarnished by dirty production. The overall sound of Proof of Youth is rough and forceful, so that it bombards the listener, demanding that they succumb to its elaborate showmanship. It is testament to The Go! Team’s focus that even in the album’s most intense few minutes, Titanic Vandalism, they so seamlessly work in more of their cruisey pop hooks. It’s true to say that this is an album you need to be in the mood for (namely an ecstatically happy one) but you’ll find that its inventive genre mashing and furious energy helps quite a lot.

The Go! Team are experts at every facet of their sound and they may well have their youth to thank, but their success since the release of Thunder Lightning Strike is probably just as much due to a general thirst for the kind of enthusiasm and initiative that Proof of Youth delivers in spades.