Rolling Blackouts

2011 release, the third album from the British Electro/Rock/Hip Hop/Garage outfit. Frantic, seesaw brass stabs and delay-pedal vapor trails. Eagles riding the thermals. A call and response between a flute and a girl gang. Time lapse through the seasons in Yosemite Park. A ray-gun Synth and a steel drum. Rolling Blackouts is epic and bratty, subtle and sweet. From the two-minute opening slammer of "T.O.R.N.A.D.O." to the album's title track featuring Bethany Cosentino (Best Coast), it's all restless and relentless energy. Cosentino also lends vocals to "Buy Nothing Day," a hyper girls-in-the-garage jangle, while rising Tampa rapper Dominique Young Unique dominates the psych hip-hop call and response of "Voice Yr Choice" and goes tag-team on the string-led space race of "Apollo Throwdown." Deerhoof's Satomi Matsuzaki leads the way on "Secretary Song," evoking an asymmetrical Tokyo office with elevators opening on the beat, typing in time and phones ringing in rhythm. With "Ready to Go Steady," the Team delivers their first straight-ahead love song, a nimble pocket-rocket symphony.