Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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17 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Dancing Taranta, July 9, 2007
Gogol Bordello hit the big time with their last album of raucous gypsy-punk, which coincided with frontman Eugene Hutz's screen debut.
And they stick to their past sound in "Super Taranta!" -- a mad, frenetic ride splattered with heavy doses of Balkan folk music. Their sound and vibe don't shift too much in this one, but their energy and wildness hasn't failed them, or their kooky blend of gypsy and Pogues-style rock'n'roll.
"If we are here not to do/what you and I wanna do?/And go for rubber, crazy with it/why the hell we are livin' here? DAH!" Eugene Hutz calls out a capella...
... just before the music lapses into a swaying, colourful Balkan melody... which goes into fast-forward about halfway through. Hutz is roaring and growning about how "there were never any good old days/they are today, they are tomorrow!/It's a stupid thing to say" as the music revs around him.
It gets even more energetic in the wild festival sound of "Wonderlust King," and the driving bass-rocker "Zina Marina." With those done, they spin off into a series of energetic Balkan rockers: accordion pop, jibbering fiddlerock, darkly gleeful punk, wailing guitar laments, and what sounds like the theme song to a gypsy James Bond movie.
It has to be admitted, Gogol Bordello hasn't really changed their sound much. Not that stops it from being fun frenetic, colourful, slightly messy and very insane, without a shred of self-consciousness. It's a Jackson Pollock of Balkan noise.
But "Super Taranta" does adjust their sound a bit -- there's a bit more gypsy in their music, and a few bits less punk, with tighter melodies than before. We get a tangle of raging, twining guitar and bass (and Eliot Ferguson's solid drums) driving the melodies along, but often they're swathed in dancey fiddle and blaring accordion. It's a pretty wild ride, all around.
And Hutz provides practically all the singing himself, in a voice that always sounds like he's about to pop a vocal cord. Raw, rough, untamed. He growls, wails, howls, and roars out his political, party-hearty lyrics: "My strange uncles from beyond/I'll meet 'em on the cosmos street/and we will drink to how we told/to never trust a plastic beat!"
"Super Taranta" is the sort of music that gets your heart racing and adrenaline shooting. A raucous, wild party album for an East European festival.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Energetic and super-charged., December 28, 2008
As the Pogues once fused Irish folk with punk rock, so Gogol Bordello do the same with fiery Balkan gipsy music.
Although a formidable live presence, the New York band have been hit and miss on record.
Super Taranta! is a step forward. Roaring choruses are interspersed with manic violins, dub interludes and raucous polemics growled by luxuriantly moustachioed frontman Eugene Hutz.
"Gogol Bordello"'s red-blooded passion is refreshing, and they finally have another batch of boisterous singalongs to match it.
This 'gypsy punk' cacophony is all those times rolled into one.
Party on, dudes !
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Slavic ardor, September 20, 2007
Your savage heart will sing to this generous sound. Recklessness and frenzy of a gypsy wedding. Cynicism and melancholy of a post-soviet back alley. So real, so good. I am from Ukraine, Eugene's motherland, and I can not get enough Gogol Bordello!
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