With dub beats, insane funk, and kooky lounge, San Diego's
Gogogo Airheart joins the ranks of 2002's disco punk revivalists:
Erase Errata,
Numbers, Whirlwind Heat,
Radio 4, the Rapture, and
Pixeltan. Combining a thrift-store aesthetic with an art punk attitude,
Exitheuxa evokes everything from
Gang of Four to
Public Image Ltd. to
the Talking Heads.
Gogogo Airheart is less danceable than
Radio 4 and more accessible than
Erase Errata, laying down experimental grooves like the twisted, late-'70s vibe of "Sincerely P.S." Throughout the album, singer Michael Vermillion's voice warbles, trembles, and whines like a kinder, gentler
John Lydon. The music seems boundless in approach, with off-kilter melodies, changing tempos, and zigzagging rhythms, but when it comes down to it, the strongest tracks are the most straightforward, including the old-school rock & roll of the raucous cut "Sit and Stare" and the scrappy punk of "Mifi." ~ Charles Spano