Band: Go Fight
Album: Tokyo Sexwale
Label: Go Station
Jim
Marcus; Vocals, Drums, Percussion, Synths, Noise
Daniel
Evans: Bass, Guitar, Synths, Noise
Vince
McAley: Drums, Percussion, Noise
Mission
Marcus: Bass, Guitar, Noise
Produced, Mixed and Mastered at: Go Station
https://gofight.bandcamp.com/album/tokyo-sexwale
https://www.facebook.com/gofightband/
So I am excited for this review of Go Fight’s album “Tokyo Sexwale”. As a young angry man in the early 90s I never had a punk rock phase to express that feeling. Instead I found Industrial music as that outlet. I heard Pretty Hate Machine at 14 and I was all in. Most of what Industrial music came to mean to me was an expression of that angst I felt at the world. I went to a show around 1995 to see two bands Sister Machine Gun and Die Warzau. It really left me changed in my mindset that this music I loved full of drum machines and thick remixed heavy metal guitar was possible of so much more range in emotion and tone. Fast forward 24 years and I am listening to Pat Allen’s radio program when he plays a song called Chemical by Go Fight. That feeling was back, Pat used the wonderful term “fundustrial” but what really struck me was that same feeling of serious concepts carried with a beautiful pop energy. Then I learned of the connection between Die Warzau and Go Fight. While I danced my tail off around my bedroom I was transported back those 25 years by this fresh searing explosion of sound.
This album is all crisp sexy motion, covered in a layer of technicolor slime, and spun through a cement mixer. Jim Marcus has one of those unique and captivating voices that leads you in rhythmic chants mixed in with beautiful call and answer melodies. The songs keep building and driving pulling and pushing you around the dance floor. I don’t know if anyone in the business is writing better drum loops and fills in heavy dance music. These lyrics are anything but pop fluff. These are heady, often political, very in your face real challenges that are such a wonderful contradiction to the hot club feel of the music. This is music inspiration. Full of fight and life. Full of hope and energy. Evans and Marcus do a masterful job of laying bass, guitar, and tapestry to the vocals without overshadowing. They are the fire that fuels this engine. My only regrets about this album are that I didn’t find it sooner.
Standout tracks:
Chemical – I’ll start with this because it was my introduction to Go Fight but also because this song is a total jam. It starts with Marcus doing a sexy spoken chant describing the strange and complicated world of modern dating in technology. It’s so tongue and cheek but speaks to a relevant issue that touches on real emotion. Also the hook on the chorus is impossible not to sing along to. I challenge anyone to hear this song and not go running for the nearest dance floor.
Another Fucking Love Song – This one is another single but that crunchy guitar riff and Jim’s blues driven cadence sung with such venom and drive. Again they are really taking on a serious feeling that faces our culture and wrapping it in a golden industrial disco wrapper.
Queer the World – Great title! This bass line is coming at you right off the bat and sways you while the guitar cuts. Telling a series of stories in concrete terms before leading up to that deep chant of Queer the World. It makes me want to join the revolution right now.
Overall this album is one I can’t believe I found so late in 2018. It is so full of everything I love about music and fired from a glorious bright colored cannon of progressive ideals and themes I related to. It also makes me want to dig through my old cds to find Die Warzau. Seriously this record belongs on every modern dance mix in the world. I love every aspect of it. Got buy it!