THE GO - FREE ELECTRICITY

The dawn of the twenty-first century was a true renaissance for Detroit rock 'n' roll. Bands such as The Dirtbombs, The Hentchmen, and The White Stripes that had been raised on the Stooges and the MC5 were making garage rock relevant to a new generation. However, there was one band that was seemingly poised to rise above the rest -- The Go. Signed to prominent Seattle indie label Sub Pop and featuring a young Jack White in their ranks, the band ultimately released their debut LP, Whatcha Doin', to deaf ears in September 1999 only to be unceremoniously dropped by the label before the end of the album cycle. The band would forge onward with a rotating cast of players, releasing albums on labels as varied as King Lizard, Italy Records, and Cass Records before calling it a day in 2013. However, buried deep in the lore of Detroit garage rock mythology was the rumoured existence of a shelved sophomore album recorded for Sub Pop in 2000, Free Electricity.

Fast-forward a quarter-century and Free Electricity has finally been unleashed into the wild. Released by Sub Pop as originally intended, this album sees the band playing at the height of their powers after a year of touring Whatcha Doin'. Recorded at Ghetto Recorders in Detroit with Jim Diamond of Dirtbombs fame alongside returning producer Matthew Smith, the performances are considerably tighter than on their debut, to say nothing of the quantum leap in songwriting that had taken place in the intervening year.

The first half of the album is populated with standard three-and-a-half minute rockers that were already standard fare for the band at this point; however, the band that emerges on the album's second half is a completely fully-realized evolution of The Go, as they deliver eleven-minute psychedelic garage rock free-jazz improvisations that somehow still manage to sound like the same band that was tearing through "Meet Me at the Movies" and "Keep on Trash" a year earlier.

It's easy to see why Sub Pop might have been been leery about releasing this album back in 2000, with the sheer ambition of the songwriting being diametrically opposed to the radio-friendly material that the label would end up finding with bands such as Hot Hot Heat and Wolf Parade later in the decade. However, with hindsight being 20/20, Free Electricity  makes a compelling case for the logical evolution of the Detroit garage rock sound at a time when The White Stripes were within a year of being signed by XL Records internationally.

While The Go may no longer be active, this long-overdue release of Free Electricity fills in an essential piece of the Detroit garage rock timeline. Listening to it in 2026 is the best form of time travel possible, revealing an imagined future of rock 'n' roll from a band that was on the bleeding edge of a scene that would come to dominate popular culture two years later with the Strokes, the Hives and the Vines bringing international credibility to the music that was already thriving in Detroit. This record is the living proof that there is no stopping The Go.

-Leks Maltby