Pura Vida Conspiracy
*Pura Vida Conspiracy* overflows with warmth, humor, and muscular musicianship. Gogol Bordello\'s sixth studio release—and its first for Dave Matthews’ ATO label—offers another geography lesson from these citizens of the world. Gogol Bordello started as a Gypsy band, and Eastern European and Celtic traditions remain at the core of everything the group creates. But *Pura Vida Conspiracy* pulls Tex-Mex, country, and Latin rhythms into the band\'s orbit as never before. “Malandrino” and “Dig Deep Enough” are stomping mariachi numbers, while “We Rise Again” shifts easily from English to Spanish and “I Just Realized” is a gentle samba. Never to stick with one style long, Gogol Bordello also does the sea shanty “It Is the Way You Name Your Ship” and the funky “John the Conqueror,” which fits neatly into no category. The album closes with an acoustic ballad that fades to silence before delivering a surprise ending. Acoustic and electric guitars, fiddle, accordion, drums, and bass crackle and pop while charismatic Ukrainian singer Eugene Hütz delivers populist lyrics such as “borders are scars on face of the planet” in joyous broken English.
On Gogol Bordello's first LP in three years, frontman Eugene Hütz doesn't just deliver his lines, he devours them. Musically, Pura Vida Conspiracy feels like the fullest musical expression of his band's borderless sound since 2005's Steve Albini-recorded Gypsy Punks.
In some countries, the phrase “pura vida” is Spanish slang that functions similarly to “aloha” and the shaka sign in Hawaiian culture—both greeting and goodbye—but with the added usage of conveying contentment. That laid-back sentiment doesn’t really vibe with the thunderous train that is Eugene Hütz and Gogol…
There's as much tenderness as there is explosiveness on Gogol Bordello's latest gypsy punk venture.
Gogol Bordello have been together as a band for nearly 15 years now, and true to their gypsy lifestyle, they've been touring nonstop almost that entire time.
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[xrr rating=4.0/5]Gogol Bordello doesn’t so much march to the beat of a different drummer as dance to the rhythm of a crazy-quilt amalgam of percussion traditions.
New York gypsy punks trot out the usual flavour with the usual panache. CD review by Thomas H Green