Belgian trio serve up electrifying debut packed full of motorik math-rock jams
Think of all those albums you’ve read about that never saw the light of day; the painfully delayed releases or the “we just didn’t like the end results” type quotes from musicians attempting to justify their stultifying post-studio self-doubt. Don’t expect any of that sort of nonsense from the Go March fellas.
Bursting with carefree, exploratory energy, on the evidence of this promisingly complete debut they are about as prone to introspection as wolves on ecstasy. The Belgian trio that comprises guitarist Philipp Weies, keyboard man Hans De Prins and drummer Antono Foscez have collaborated here to create a long-player that thrums with an unshackled intuitive ebullience seldom heard in these digitally precise times. Their reference points – krautrock, melancholic synthpop and post-rock to name but a few – are broad, but the confident verve with which they pull them all together bodes extremely well.
On entering the studio their initial aim was to base the compositions on the controlled chaos of avant-rockers like Lightning Bolt or Japan’s Boris, but once they’d plugged in, tuned up and got down to business, things didn’t quite pan out that way. “The moments when we just improvised were simply far more interesting,” reflects Weies. They played the demos to a friend who compared the sounds they conjured up to a cross between Trans-Am and a Maserati… to which the guitarist replied, “Wow, we need to check them out!”.
So yes, nobody’s taking themselves too seriously here. Yet in conspiring to create the musical equivalent of a hybrid super-deluxe, six-litre, four-star, swagger-charged dream ride, they’ve also veered into uncharted musical territory. The results are hugely satisfying: here sophisticated and intricate; there powerful and grandiose. But at the same time they are soaringly, unpredictably crackpot: Battles meet Neu! in a soundclash bossed by Eno.
Barring the off-target southern rawk geetar of ‘Earthbound’, every track is a winner. The propulsive digital motorik of debut single ‘Rise’ recalls the electrified glam of Finnish rave-stompers K-X-P, and though early Kraftwerk or Neu! are channelled perhaps more literally on the equally brilliant ‘Like A Record’, it feels like it’s being done with a knowing glint. But it’s not all foot-to-the-floor. Passages of reiterated polyrhythmic loops are near trance inducing on the reflectively atmospheric closer ‘The White Lodge’, and on ‘Slow Horse’, the downtempo pace set by an imperious, pristine synth hum could stop a shire horse in its tracks.
An out-of-nowhere, instantly gratifying screamer, this is the future sound of Antwerp.
