By the time most bands reach their eleventh album, they are usually chasing one of two things: relevance or legacy. GO TIME! seem interested in neither. That may be exactly why 11 works so well.
The Chicago quartet have built their reputation the old-fashioned way — through years of live gigs, consistency, and a refusal to overcomplicate what should fundamentally be a good rock record. Their latest release doesn’t arrive with grand artistic statements or self-conscious mythology attached to it. Instead, 11 delivers 15 sharply played tracks fueled by loud guitars, melodic instincts, and the kind of confidence that only comes from years of doing the work.
FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/gotimeband
There’s an immediacy to this album that stands out right away. Much of that probably comes from the circumstances surrounding its creation. During recovery from surgery, frontman Scott Niekelski reportedly wrote 40 songs in four weeks, leaving the band with an unusually large pool of material to choose from. Rather than turning the project into an exhausting marathon, GO TIME! wisely selected the strongest cuts and shaped them into something leaner and more focused than its track count might suggest.
What separates GO TIME! from countless other power-pop revivalists is that they never sound overly polished. The band’s music carries the rough edges of garage rock without collapsing into sloppiness. There’s melody here, certainly, but it arrives attached to muscle rather than sweetness. The result lands somewhere between barroom rock-and-roll and classic power pop, delivered with enough grit to keep it from becoming overly nostalgic.
The album opens with “Influencer,” which immediately establishes the record’s punchy, forward-moving personality. From there, 11 rarely slows down for long. Songs like “Expectations Falling,” “Game of Extremes,” and “Stabs You In The Back” fit naturally into the album’s restless pacing, while tracks such as “Fragments Of Yesterday” and “Too Soon” help vary the mood without draining the momentum. GO TIME! understand that records like this live or die on flow, and 11 keeps the listener engaged by constantly pushing toward the next hook, riff, or chorus.
A major strength of the album is the absence of ego. Even though Niekelski serves as songwriter, engineer, and mixer, the band never feels dominated by one personality. Guitarist and keyboardist Paul Schmidt contributes heavily to the texture of the record, while bassist Mark Marketti and drummer Steve Grzenia provide a sturdy rhythmic backbone that keeps the material grounded. The performances feel collaborative in the best sense of the word.
https://open.spotify.com/album/6XmSWdoO9ExtAHgRY4FrIo
There’s also a distinctly regional quality to GO TIME!’s sound that gives the album character. You can hear the influence of Midwest club culture in these songs — the kind of music built for crowded venues, long weekends, cheap beer, and audiences standing close to the stage. Nothing about 11 feels distant or detached. It sounds like a band playing for actual people rather than online metrics.
That authenticity becomes the album’s greatest strength. GO TIME! are not trying to reinvent rock music here. They are simply delivering another solid chapter in a long-running career built on hooks, volume, and persistence. In a musical landscape crowded with disposable releases, there’s something deeply satisfying about a band that still believes in the power of a loud guitar, a strong chorus, and showing up ready to play.
Gwen Waggoner