Straying away from the silence with a lot of energy, we find the strands of a glistening harmony untouched by artificiality altogether in “Long Term Effect,” but as striking a sound as this is to find, it’s not isolated to this lone track in the new album Anything Could Happen from Go Time!.
“Long Term Effect” is matched with free-for-all jams in the form of “Necessary Mistakes” and churning numbers like “Before it Goes Dark” for good measure, while other tunes like “Under the Radar” and “Sensibility Withdrew” go against the aesthetical grain with outsider concepts more than welcome in this alternative smorgasbord of sound. Go Time! have one agenda and one agenda alone in Anything Could Happen, and that’s to get us connected with the organic intensity of their songcraft by any means necessary – save for inviting synthetics into the mix. From the bright pop of “Meaning Behind It” to the storm of melancholic grooves that assaults us in “Waiting for Your Command,” this is an album that is full of powerful music to be shared with the world, and it couldn’t be arriving at a more optimal moment in 2023 than the present.
“The Hard Way Out” and “Burden of Proof” are a bit more controlled in their arrangement than “Seizer Plan” is, but I for one like the way that this record makes it impossible for us to see what’s coming around the next bend. In giving songs like “Before the Crash” a sugary hook in comparison to the four tracks preceding it, there’s a sudden swing in the mood of the music that we’re forced to keep up with, but the tempo of the band keeps things moving fluidly rather than chopping off one chapter only to start another just seconds later.
https://open.spotify.com/track/5CO0wrdoGmeNn70k53xKxw
“Sensibility Withdrew” and “Head Space” are probably the most complete songs here compositionally, but there’s an argument to be made that their narratives wouldn’t ache with as much authenticity were they surrounded by filler instead of the formidable presence of songs like “Before it Goes Dark,” “Turbulent Times” and “Before the Crash.” I’m hesitant to call this a concept album, but at the same time, it’s the sort of record that I want to hear from start to finish once I’ve listened to even a taste of its tracklist (which isn’t common among most of the LPs I’ve reviewed in the past year).
I heard a bit about this group before I got my copy of Anything Could Happen this April, but I don’t think I could have expected to be as impressed with their sound in this album as I ultimately am today. Independent of the mainstream market and sounding quite proud of this fact, Go Time! issue a truly remarkable collection of stories and stacked tributes to the soul of Surrealism in this record, and it’s personally hard for me to imagine it not connecting with a wide audience of listeners this month. Even with the competitiveness of the modern alternative beat, Go Time! has it going on in this LP – and I for one don’t plan on missing out on any of their future content.
Gwen Waggoner
