A review of Notorious Goose's (relatively) new EP, Aqua Caligula. Before you get into the usual nonsense body of the review, I should point out that I actually, genuinely, non-ironically liked this. I enjoyed listening to it, I really did.
Band website is www.maths.tcd.ie/~cblair/notoriousgoose.
Following the extended hiatus subsequent to the release of their first album, Notorious Goose have sent out a message to the musical world that they are quite definitively back and are preparing to, once more, take the unexpecting masses by storm and assure the permanency of their thoroughly deserved place at the pinnacle of Dublin’s Progressive-House-Metal-Turntablism-Korean-Spanish-Pop-Indie-Fusion scene. To this end, they have released a truly groundbreaking piece of work in their four-track EP Aqua Caligula.
To say that the Goose have, musically, moved away from their roots and into divergent territory is an understatement of catastrophic proportions. However, the core messages of the past still shine through strong in the EP’s opening – and title – track, Aqua Caligula. An unfamiliar beat crashes in like an earthquake, while deep tones and obscure incantations haunt the background like a spirit that shall not be laid to rest. Eventually this melts into a soaring crescendo of musical self-actualisation, the Goose breaking free of the limitations they had in the past and attaining a new level of existence. The question posed by this track is that since they have reached a higher plane through music, will you join them there?
The second track, Hans Beimler Komerad, is a stirring elegy, not for Hans Beimler, the Mexican Jew who wrote Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, but for the German communist Hans Beimler who was incarcerated in Dachau for anti-Nazi campaigning, before being killed while fighting for the Republicans in Spain. The song is both an elegant paean for the human spirit and dignity embodied in Beimler’s tireless fight for his beliefs, and a mourning that such heroism is forgotten and ignored by a society obsessed with the bloodthirsty deeds of wicked men and ostentatious, two-dimensional “good guys”.
This theme of society’s consensual, subconscious repression of the side of the past that doesn’t suit their vision of things is continued in Jarama, the indistinct lyrics and powerful, stark chord strokes serving as a reminder of the obfuscation and distortion post-neo-revisionist historiography has placed upon events in our world. Bleak and low key, the song’s doomed struggle against this wave perfectly mirrors the desperate, heroic, but ultimately in vain efforts of the Spanish Republicans to hold off Franco’s numerically superior forces at the Battle of Jarama. These men fought for freedom, truth and what they believed in, and the Goose are doing much the same with this song, a timely reminder that we must question all that is presented to us in this world we inhabit.
Finally The Good Ship Moo Ship serves as a plea for a simpler age, evoking the wide-eyed fascination of childhood when presented with the wide ocean and a boat in which to navigate it. That sea, for us now, is knowledge, and for too long, we have been kept firmly on the shore by those who would rather we do not ever try to discover the truth about our existence. This song is simple in its message – set sail without fear and you will find yourself.
All in all, this is another stellar piece of work from Blair and Humphreys, and one only hopes that the second album can live up to the standard set by this EP, in terms of lyrics, music and message.
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