New Music Reviews Music Reviews

The Go! Team cheers

By CHRISTINA SCHROETER

Daily Titan Staff

Combining 1970s style with fi lth and cheerleaders may create a mildly sinful image in some minds, but The Go! Team manages to smoothly mix these ingredients into a G-rated album.

“Panther Dash,” the fi rst song on the band’s new album, Thunder, Lighting, Strike, combines surf guitar and harmonica with short samples of ambulance sirens and cheerleading chants into a theme-song melody, reminiscent of the popular ‘70s T.V. show, “Hawaii Five-O.”

The majority of the album sounds tarnished and fuzzy, giving an imperfectly vintage feel to the modern album. The Go! Team blends funky melodies with modern manipulation.

“The Power is On” is a mix of raps and chants thrown into a complex background of keyboard, drums and claps, creating a catchy and funky hip-hop tune with a suspenseful 1970s style. The band sticks with its cheerleading and ‘70s themes throughout the album.

Imagine junior high cheerleaders chanting along the sidelines of a football fi eld on a sunny afternoon. Their team is down by six points. The lanky B-team nerd inadvertently intercepts the ball and, with all his strength, runs for a touchdown. This is the triumphant sound of “We Just Won’t Be Defeated.”

While the song leaves the listener with a victorious sentiment, “Junior Kickstart” sounds like the closing credits to a crimesolving 1980s T.V. show like “Magnum, P.I.” Just imagine Tom Selleck’s character gloriously hopping into a helicopter after fi ghting crime in Hawaii. The camera smoothly pans back, showing a wide-screen view of the helicopter taking off and fl ying above the vast ocean against the sunset. This had to be what they were watching when they wrote the song.

“Hold Yr Terror Close,” a new addition to the U.S. release of Thunder, Lighting, Strike, pulls away from its typical ‘70s cheerleader elements with a much softer sound.

Although many of The Go! Teams songs consist of the same three components each maintains its uniqueness. How The Go! Team does it cannot be put into words, but be prepared to let your imagination run wild, because each song is a theme song for your own visions, sensations and experiences.

Doom defi es status quo

By ERIC SANDERS

Daily Titan Staff

Question: What do you get when you mix a rapper with a metal face, a producer in a mouse suit and the characters from Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim?

Answer: One of the most artistic and creative hip-hop albums ever made. The notorious hip-hop super villain MF Doom has returned, and he’s brought a few friends with him in his latest morbid masterpiece, Dangerdoom: The Mouse and the Mask. In this cartoon inspired album, Metal Face has joined forces with DJ Danger Mouse (most noted for his Jay-Z/Beatles remix, The Grey Album) and Adult Swim to produce one of his most diabolical albums yet.

A bold statement considering the list of accomplishments and collaborations by Doom, but believe me, this one will knock your socks off.

Not since Jack Tripper, Janet Wood and Chrissy Snow shared a quaint little beach apartment, has a trio produced so much magic and comic relief together.

It must be the spicy ingredients of samples in Danger Mouse’s unconventional beats or the sarcastic quips by the degenerates from Adult Swim that lit a fi re under Doom’s ass, because in Dangerdoom he takes his mad-cap-rap lyrics to a whole new dimension. Never has a rapper been so gifted in the unusual art of off-the-wall a cappella, as MF Doom is.

Allies of Doom’s who’ve come

EPITAPH MF Doom and Danger Mouse come together in Dangerdoom.

to fi ght the forces of crap-rap along side him include Cee-Lo, Talib Kweli and Ghostface Killah. The Doom and Ghostface collaboration titled “The Mask,” is a rare audio experience, with two of hip-hop’s most visual slang-spitting lyricists teaming up in true super villain fashion.

The track also scratches at the surface as to what might be the apocalyptic rumor of an album in the works between the two: Metal Face and Ironman together! The hip-hop world will never be the same after that one.

“Crosshairs” begins with a funky bass line and a guitar riff reminiscent of Bradley Knowell, making one think he’s listening to the return of Sublime. That is until the sounds of beautiful violins kick in and Doom introduces himself as he eerily glides over the beat.

In the bass bumping and keyboard pounding song “Benzie Box,” Danger Mouse created a beat that will make fans want to blow their speakers out with this one. The song features Cee-Lo, who sings the chorus and lets the world know about the masked rapper MF Doom.

The album is a reminder to true believers that the essence of hiphop isn’t about shameless materialism or record sales, but resides in the creative experiments of DJs and the imaginative verbal expression of emcees.

For those who fear change, turn your radio back on and continue to listen to the same loops over and over again until your ears bleed. But for the brave souls who yearn for a taste of something new – something unfamiliar – get this album. Your ears will thank you.

Flamenco comes to life in OC

By MAHSA KHALILIFAR

Daily Titan Asst. Entertainment Editor

Famed Flamenco dancer José Porcel is coming to the Orange County Performing Arts Center’s Segerstrom Hall next week. The performances will run from Oct. 27 to 29. Rush tickets are available for students with valid ID at The Center Box Offi ce for $10 to 20 (there’s a two ticket limit) an hour before showtime with cash only. Regularly priced tickets are available for $20 to 65.

For more information you can call (714) 556-2787 or visit www. ocpac.org. Stay tuned to The Buzz for a review of the show coming in two weeks.

MAINSTREAM 7 Coheed plays SoCal

OC PERFORMING ARTS CENTER Fierce rhythms fuel Ballet Flamenco.

OC PERFORMING ARTS CENTER Ballet Flamenco José Porcel dancers.

By JASON KEHLER

Special to the Daily Titan

With an ominous guillotine looming in the background, Coheed and Cambria took the stage Sunday night at the Wiltern LG and on Monday night at the Grove in Anaheim. The guillotine is a symbol from latest installation of the Coheed and Cambria saga, written by front man Claudio Sanchez.

This tour is the band’s fi rst since releasing the latest album Good Apollo, I’m Burning Star IV, Volume One: From Fear Through the Eyes of Madness. The new CD is the fourth part of the story and third CD released by the band.

The set opened with the title track off the album “Good Apollo Keeping The Blade.” Half

way through the track Sanchez walked onstage alone holding his double-necked guitar and completely rocked out during the set’s third song, “Welcome Home.”

The two Southland concerts were the band’s fi rst opportunity to display the newest songs. The band also played crowd favorites like “Devil In Jersey City,” “A Favor House Atlantic” and ended the set with “Everything Evil.”

The band came back both nights for an epic encore, started with a song that was long-used as a show opener, “In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth: 3.”

“In Keeping Secrets” usually runs around nine minutes long during the live set and was followed by “The Willing Well IV - The Final Cut,” which they performed with an extended jam session after the song’s only verse.

Both Sanchez and guitarist Travis Stever performed “The Final Cut” with lengthy solos. Sanchez even performed part of the song with his guitar behind his head and another with it in his mouth.

At the conclusion of “The Final Cut,” the blade on the guillotine was released and crashed down, declaring the end of the concert. JAMES MINCHIN III Claudio Sanchez plays his guitar in front of a live audience in Hollywood at the Avalon.