Named after a character from Top Gun, the group’s favourite film when they were growing up in Belgium, Goose started off as a AC/DC tribute band. Before vocalist/keyboardist Mickael Karkousse, Dave Martijn on guitars and keyboard, bassist/keyboardist Tom Coghe, and Bert Libeert on drums decided to write their own songs. As this debut album shows, they’ve added further strings to their bow since their first incarnation.

Whilst once they merely rocked, Goose now find themselves championed by the dance fraternity. Consequently, 2006 saw them signed to the label owned by that well-known purveyor of big beat, Norman Cook. Less Fat Boy Slim in sound, they’re more the Infadels on speed, or a funkier version of Hot Chip, and/or a Primal Scream remixed by 2 Many DJs.

When asked in a recent interview about Goose blurring the distinction between dance and rock, head honcho Mickael Karkousse seemed to doff his cap to his current paymaster, Cook. “We use a lot of tricks that a DJ would use, like filtering” admitted Karkousse. “We use a cut off with our synthesizers as a DJ would do it with a mixing desk, we do the break down, like taking the bass away or taking the drums out, or just the vocals and leave the synth.” “So we’re just playing around and sometimes we sound like a DJ but as a rock band.”

It’s such genre-straddling that won them a slot at this year’s Carling Weekend. In the Dance Tent. Ordinarily, noise from the Main Stage usually drown out the smaller venues at Reading and Leeds, but by all accounts a pounding set by Goose ensured they were heard loud and clear.

As well being the name of a well-known bird, goose is also a verb. It means to pinch the buttocks of another person between forefinger and thumb. A sensation mixing pleasure with pain, as invariably it’s performed as advance foreplay, it’s one not too dissimilar to listening to this Belgian band – given their erotic rendition of rock-fuelled dance music. You know when you’ve been Goosed.
(3½/5)