Music

Gypsy Punk: Gogol Bordello

Julie Seabaugh

Gogol Bordello

Super Taranta!

***1/2

Gypsy Punks: Underdog World Strike marked just about the closest approximation eight spazzed-out Eastern European ska/rap/cabaret/reggae/punk-rock gypsies could get to a mainstream breakthrough. The 2005 album ushered in two Warped Tour stints and featured “Start Wearing Purple,” the song that became an unofficial anthem for the Baltimore Ravens and appeared in the film version of Everything Is Illuminated, co-starring singer/guitarist Eugene Hutz alongside Elijah Wood.

With its fourth full-length, Gogol Bordello remains a band best admired 1) live and 2) very sporadically on disc. Taranta sees raucous accordions, strings and brass emphasizing the rootsier aspects of their rebel world-rock, particularly during the title track, “Tribal Connection” and “Super Theory of Super Everything.” Yet punk determination and illumination inform the lyrics of “Wonderlust King,” “Forces of Victory” and “My Strange Uncles From Abroad.” There’s also “American Wedding,” a riotous condemnation of empty ceremony over authentic celebration.

It’s all well-produced, wildly imaginative, pretension-free stuff that subtly shifts all-too-optimistic notions of what Music Can Achieve. But eventually, as with every Bordello experience, it just gets too exhaustive, and too repetitive. It doesn’t quite measure up to Strike, but Taranta remains one of those rare guilty pleasures in which what you’re most ashamed of is your own limited capabilities of appreciation.

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