http://slyoyster.com

After listening to the stream for the first single off The Go! Team’s latest, we came away impressed with “Grip Like a Vice.” Mostly because it sounded similar to what the band had done off their catchy as hell Thunder, Lightening, Strike LP. That album was like listening to 80’s cartoon theme songs on amphetamines with some good natured cheerleading thrown in. It sounded like nothing we’d heard before and yet if felt oddly nostalgic.

This time around, the first single was driven by a “hey ladies” call out, a staccato horn section, and ominious guit work. Like all of their best songs, it sounds like too much is going on, as if each part of the song is doing it’s own thing, and yet the band always seems to pull it together into a cohesive whole.

The band has just debuted the video for “Grip Like a Vice” and there’s nothing cartoony about it. Seems like the band has taken a wrong turn at the Terrordome and stepped right into a socio-political nightmare. Air raid sirens open the stark black and white video. They drop references to a time American wishes it could forget – the upheaval of the sixties.

You’ll get glimpses of lead MC Ninja as a member of the Black Panther Party, black power hand fists, and sly allusions to the KKK. Much more intense than we woulda assumed having listened to the song.

The British pep squaders have also signed onto Sub Pop Records to release their new album.

Proof of Youth is out 9/11 on Sub Pop.