GOGOL BORDELLO GYPSY PUNKS UNDERDOG - Vinyl

These "gypsy punks," as the band jubilantly describes itself, were once precisely that, a spectacular clash of cultures that smashed the exuberance of Ukrainian gypsy music and the pounding rhythms and exhilarating fire of Slavic folk, with the roar of punk rock. That was then, but now globalization has got them in its grip, and Gogol Bordello set about crashing through national boundaries, reconnecting the cultural links borders have severed. If a fire and fury for life fed the soul of the gypsy, the Slav, and the punk, it also lay at the heart of hard rock and heavy metal, and so into the meat grinder goes incendiary lead guitar. Flamenco's fire lies in its emotive rhythms and dangerous atmospheres, both of which seep into the set as well. You can hear it on "60 Revolutions," and even more magnificently on the stomping "Think Locally Fuck Globally," whose rhythms subtly quicken into a furious flamingo fire, before sweeping into a tribal tattoo, finally flinging itself out in a gypsy