Album: Trans-Continental Hustle
Year: 2010
Format: Spotify
Grade: B
Plenty of artists have a reputation for being better live. Gogol Bordello is among that group.
I've never seen Gogol live, but I saw footage of its live show in 3-D in a movie theater once.
To try to bottle that punch and zest, enter uber-producer Rick Rubin, a man with a mastery of such wizardry, for the band's fifth platter.
The record is a composite of the band's many international flavors, including Ukranian singer Eugene Hütz's relocation to Brazil in the year prior to recording.
Like an animal in a cage, the studio still feels like it constrains Hütz, although Hustle, the group's major-label debut, shows more polish than any of its predecessors.
They're a group not to be taken too seriously — the genres try to shift, but somehow manage a fun sameness — but instead to relax and embrace.
Hustle may not be a drastic departure from its brethren in Gogol's catalog, but something tells me no one expected any different.
Tomorrow's entry: H.P. Lovecraft, H.P. Lovecraft II
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