New history of...
E. A Solinas | MD USA | 11/24/2007
(4 out of 5 stars)
"There's a bit of gypsy in everything Gogol Bordello performs, but "Wonderlust King" takes it a few steps further. And this raucously frenetic little tune is a deliciously solid sampling of their gypsy-punk style... now if only the second tune lived up to the first's excellence.
"Back in the day yo as we learned/A man was not considered to... fully grown/Has he not gone beyond the hills/Has he not crossed the seven seas..." Hutz bawls out over a strummed guitar, only to be joined by a chorus of male voices yelling, "Yeah, seven seas at LEAST!"
Then it erupts into a bouncing, energetic little rock tune, full of guitar, clashing drums, accordion and a wild fiddle. When those aren't setting the beat, Hutz is howling joyously about what he's seen across the world -- trans-Siberian sex toys, Chinese discos, and Russian forests. But he assures us that "I traveled the world/Looking for lovers/Of the ultimate beauty/But never settled in/I'm Wonderlust King!"
Unsurprisingly, any song after that is going to be a wee bit of a letdown. The Connect Session version of "Supertheory of Supereverything" is basically a raucous, lo-fi rendition of it, as if Hutz had just sat down with a guitar, and started singing the irreverent, quirky tune with a bunch of friends. ("My brothers are protons/My sisters are neutrons...")
It's a pretty solid single, but very much one for completists who simply MUST hear every song Gogol Bordello has produced -- one of the songs is from the album, and one is a B-side. One is phenomenal, and one is nice but won't blow your socks off.
The instrumentation is raucously entertaining in the first song -- it sounds like some tiny Eastern European village suddenly decided to have a wild, deranged dance festival. It's a solid, twisting mass of nimble, colourful fiddle, drums, accordion and guitar. The second is a more minimalist affair -- a guitar, an accordion, and not much else.
Not including, of course, Eugene Hutz. He howls, yowls, croons and joyously bawls through the songs, with a flicker of mischief in his raw, rough voice at all times. And he's usually backed by a few other singers, who chorale behind him, or warble behind him -- rather odd, but what works works.
"Wonderlust King" is one of those singles graced with one brilliant song, and one okay-but-not-great B-side. And full of gypsy punkery, I might add."
Track Listings (2) - Disc #1