Review Summary: I'm Up Now
The Go! Team is alive - but you knew that already. They’ve always been buzzing with life, rummaging through decades past and scouring global sounds to throw in the pot, making a meal that’ll plaster a grin on your face with the first bite. Get Up Sequences Part Two is a very pleasant reminder that this band still has the life in them to bust out a wonderful collection of tunes about twenty years on.
Like previous records, collaboration is a central point of the record. The formula, albeit simple, provides for so much variety just as it has on records past - female vocalists dot each track, from J-pop indie singer Kokubo Chisato (of Lucie,Too), to The Apples in Stereo’s Hilarie Bratset, to the entirety of the Beninese Star Feminine Band, presumably all 7 of them singing on two of the tracks found here. The team is no stranger to this formula, and it has hardly gotten old.
Songs are just as life-affirming and foot stomping as they’ve ever been - the record opens with a whirlwind as that aforementioned Star Feminine Band comes in with shouted vocals over a groovy, percussion heavy track that wastes no time getting right into it, rocking and rolling from first to last second. Elsewhere "Whammy-O" gives us probably the Go! Team’s best take on hip-hop yet, in no small part due to Brooklynite Nitty Scott’s verses, which I’m pretty sure is the first time an f-bomb has been dropped on one of these songs. Regardless, her flow actually manages to take the lead in the song, and it makes for a highlight. Ninja isn’t upstaged either - "Gemini" is pure fun, and the repeated “Hell I’m A Gemini, Baby I Can’t Help It”!’s are hard not to blurt out when you know they’re coming.
The sound here is truly kaleidoscopic from start to finish, and there’s very little in the way of weak points. The steel pan is still here, flutes are still all over, pedal effects and strings cover the record, making for that almost anachronistic trademark the band is known for. Lyrics aren’t usually a big point on these, but there are definitely anti-brexit sentiments slipped in, vague enough for any listener that has some qualms with their country to connect. Par for the course, this barely affects the sound of the record. Mid tempo cut "But We Keep On Trying" comes off a tad preachy, but it’s hard to harp on a message of positivity when everything around is screaming for you to bob your head and put a smile on your face.
The variety on Part Two can’t be understated - for a band I associate with as having a squirrel-like attention span, they’re really firing on all cylinders here. There’s no resistance on the turn of the dial - you’ll hear a quirky synth-laden ditty in-between a melancholy rock song and a psychedelic hip-hop tune, rock and roll with french vocals, and the usual 60’s influenced stuff with some extra (enjoyable!) bells and whistles.
The last two tracks in particular are a wonderful way to send off the record. They’re moodier, with bittersweet lyrics and instrumentation that just lets itself be, taking it a little slower than everything that comes before. When everything else feels like it's moving a mile a minute, the pair of songs that send off this record are incredibly memorable. Even when it’s reminding you of the pitfalls of the world, the team directs your gaze to warmth and positivity. And yeah, the bright side can be blinding, but I think that 42 minutes is a pretty healthy dose.
