Walking Bicycles
Press
¿GO? - Goth Traveler
August 2, 2009
I don't know if I can call what I write here a review of the CD ¿GO?, so much as it is a praise of it. This still plays in the car when I'm going to the Empty Bottle, or something. It plays at random on the ipod and I can jog just that much more longer. I was so glad to know Scary Lady Sarah likes them. I was thinking that this is something that she would like and she already knows them, and they know her. That was cool.
The lead singer Jocelyn's voice has this husk to it. It's part of the band's signature for me, and it has this casual authority to it, unafraid of the surroundings the voice describes. And once again the voice leads one into the landscape of urban decay, thwarted dreams. This grey world first visited with the self titled CD and then with "Disconnected". Here they are throwing a party all over it. This is how I see it. This world is given more details, more and different decay to describe, and the party continues. I keep saying "this world", I include in that phrase how they sound. "?Go?" is more of what I like in Walking Bicycles. "Dead Idols" is the coolest left turn in the Walking Bicycles arsenal. Like you're in this carnival, creepy and evocative of a forgotten time, an impression left when they played that song live, and follows through when you hear it later when you're driving or something. On that first of December, a free Monday at the Empty Bottle, I was bouncing away to "Welcome to the Future" as well, and "Old San Juan", . It has to be said that they don't sound like they want to scare you with what they describe. Jocelyn's voice stands casual in the surroundings. And the whole time you're bouncing around. The music has this Joy Division urgency to it. It's very dancy punk. They have a natural quick pulse. It's in the drums, it's in the bass guitar.
In so many reviews I read they are compared to or mentioned with Siouxsie and the Banshees. I do so as well, as a complement yet I see them as a separate animal. Here it is....if you like Siouxsie from "TinderBox" and back then you will like Walking Bicycles now. But there are departures, this band for me is iconic for it's own reasons, it's own signature. They are products of different times, ours.
¿Go? - A.V. Club
February 9, 2009
¿Go? is adventurous and immensely satisfying, even when it doesn’t meet the impossibly classic standards of their influences. At its best, the album expertly captures the vibrant urgency of melodic post-punk, and additional experimentation (like the Tom Waits-like accordion of “Dead Idols”) only serves WB better. Fans of Sleater-Kinney and Fugazi’s final album should view ¿Go? not as a question, but as an invitation. Accept it. Grade: A-
"GO?" - The Chicago Reader
November 24, 2008
"ten tight, spiky, beautifully paced tracks that glow with what sounds like the sheer joy of playing."
