Punk's always been something of an us vs. them proposition: you're either the one getting sneered at, or the one doing the sneering. Even when their music's faltered, self-styled gypsy punks Gogol Bordello have always found a way to make punk's tricky division problems work in their favor: when it's borders-- and the people who keep them in place-- that separate us, that "us" gets to be quite a crew. While the pointedness of Eugene Hütz and company's all-inclusive message has dwindled some on recent records, the overarching lesson holds: wherever you are, stand with us, the rabblerouser-slash-raconteur always seems to be saying, and eventually we'll figure it out. Hütz is, as ever, a vat of charisma, enthusiastic to a fault. At every turn on Pura Vida Conspiracy, Gogol Bordello's first LP in three years, sometime-thespian Hütz doesn't just deliver his lines, he devours them, like an actor chewing on the scenery. Whether he's trotting out his tried-and-true borders-as-scars metaphors-- long a popular topic for ex-refugee Hütz and the genre-meshing band he leads-- or spinning a wild yarn about a couple chatty midwives, he mugs and marionettes his way through Pura Vida Conspiracy like a man possessed. Hütz's vocal rigor is, itself, kind of an in-or-out proposition; you either find dude's world party cheerleader routine transfixing, or you wish he'd take it down a couple notches.
But if you don't mind Hutz in your ear for the better part of an hour, Pura Vida Conspiracy is the sharpest Gogol Bordello record in some time. Opener "We Rise Again" immediately stakes out its territory, as Hütz sings "for the love of you, for the love of me, for the love of everyone who's yet to be free… we rise again!" For every "I" or "you" on Pura Vida, there's a lot more "we," and while Hütz, as ever, busies himself by drawing lines in the sand, he's always sure to place both you and him on the same side. "We who seek long enough, dig deep enough, find a diamond in the rough one day," he belts throughout "Dig Deep Enough", strongly suggesting that you and the Ukranian-born, New York-transplanted, Brazil-based Hütz are travelers on the same path to glory.
And, though Pura Vida's forged from the same roots as past Gogol Bordello records—Eastern European folk melodies, politically savvy UK punk-- the music here feels less like a retread than a gathering of strengths. Where past Gogol Bordello records could steamroll right over you-- structure falling by the wayside as they'd rushing past verses to get to the breathless chorus-- even Pura Vida's more boisterous moments feel carefully mapped out. The basic building blocks of Gogol Bordello's sound-- traditional Eastern European folk melodies matched to the energy of politically savvy UK punk-- have never really changed. But by tamping down the tempos a hair and not letting the embellishments overpower the songs themselves, Pura Vida feels like the fullest musical expression of Gogol's borderless sound since at least 2005's Steve Albini-recorded mission statement Gypsy Punks. Sweeping fiddles and smears of Romani brass add color instead of blotting out everything around them. Flecks of ska, surf-rock, dustbowl blues all sneak their way onto Pura Vida. But where past Gogol records seemed to throw everything at you in the hopes that something might catch your ear, with Pura Vida, Gogol hang back just as much as they let loose, rolling into crescendos instead of barreling through them.
Firebrand-from-birth Hütz opts for a fairly conversational tone throughout much of Pura Vida, and this "you and me both, brother" routine is a few shades more compelling than the throat-shoveling confrontation that marred lesser Gogol records. A couple sweet, faintly supernatural love songs aside, Hütz is still rallying around the same flags he's always hoisting, upping individual freedoms while decrying institutional follies. But, next to some of Gogol Bordello's earlier outbursts, the message being conveyed here feels a bit less distinct, largely because Hütz seems to be relying on the listener to have already picked up at least a little bit of what he's been laying down. We can celebrate our differences without using them as a wedge, Hütz seems to be saying, and the disenfranchised everywhere need to band together: good advice, to be sure, but not far from what the eternally on-message Hütz has been saying all along. Without using his own story as an allegory for the plight of others as he's done in the past, every vague declaration here comes with an implicit "you know what I'm saying" attached, which makes Pura Vida more galvanizing than genuinely illuminating.
Between the spirited music and Hütz's delivery, you're not likely to walk away from Pura Vida feeling uninspired. But if you want to really hear what Gogol Bordello is saying on Pura Vida, a little history with the band is going to go a long way. Perhaps Hutz knows anybody picking up a Gogol Bordello LP in 2013 is part of the proverbial choir he's preaching to, and doesn't see the need to waste time with too much exposition. But the strongest Gogol Bordello record in a while would be all that much stronger if only Hutz could better elucidate to us just what's wrong with them.
