Gogol Bordello : "Live from Axis Mundi"
Label: Side One Dummy
Reviewed 12-03-09

Eastern-European punk, with Gypsy jazz overtones. Goofy, high-energy vocals. Consistent with Gogol Bordello's typical sound, though I'm not familiar enough with the albums to note the differences between these versions and the originals. "Live from Axis Mundi"-- though only the first half is live-- the second is studio outtakes and demos. Stick with the first half, it's really the tops, and the energy is clear.

1. *** Spare opening, builds to manic orchestra, then really drives.
2. Starts with kind of dopey call-and-response, but orchestra comes in, and gets pretty catchy.
3. Gypsy jazz guitar, wonky accordian. More of same, for better or worse. (Long-- 6:30)
4. Much more of a ballad-- nice duet effect.
5. [FCC--- "fucking" at about 1:25, sounds like they tried to blanch it out, but did a poor job of it.] Backy to goofy and driving. Very catchy.
6. *** Uptempo, builds to rabid guitar solo halfway through. Weird, gasping vocals. Meandering, scats its way to eight and a half minutes. A little bit of everything. Oh, and a fake out ending that sounds like a different song. (Skip the fake-out.)
7. ** More uptempo-- some nice gypsy fiddling. Wow, some really nice fiddling. Probably the Russian-est song on the album.
8. In-your-face, gravelly vocals, almost heavy-metallish. Eh-- it's good, except for chorus, and gets sweeter-sounding as it goes. (Six minutes)
9. [FCC-- clear "fucking" at 55 seconds, and "shit" soon after. And another "fucking."] Brash. Good instrumentation, but maybe a little too shrill in first half. Second half is more nuanced. (Six minutes, with glib aside as it closes.)
10. Percussion-heavy. Not very Slavic to start... oh, there's a fiddle in the background. More of a hip-hop type arrangement than the more Slavic tracks. Eh.
11. Instrumental-- exactly like track ten, but with baritone sax instead of vocal.