Film commonly relies on music to add emotional impact. However, with The Go! Team, who hail from Brighton, England, it works the other way around. Early singles were flush with action and near-cinematic thrills, all guitar squalls and percussive thrust, with soaring horn lines that burst through your speakers. The Go! Team's debut album, "Thunder, Lightning Strike," even ends with the jubilant aftertaste of a summer blockbuster, harmonica and symphonic swells reminding of us of heroes high-fiving as the credits roll.

For people who grew up during Reagan/Thatcher years, the album's retro-sounding samples may also dislodge memories of "School House Rock," nascent hip-hop and just about every Uzi-emptying action series from '80s prime-time TV. The nostalgia hits you indirectly: Northern Soul trumpet lines echo "The A-Team" theme song, Bollywood strings masquerade as Moog chords and schoolyard chants strut like an early Salt-n-Pepa demo. All of this commotion is propelled by the clang of lo-fi guitar and drums being pummeled to splinters.

TG!T are certainly not the first to create a coherent musical language with such a large vocabulary; artists like The Avalanches and Beck have successfully cross-pollinated for years. What's exceptional about "Thunder, Lightning Strike" is how every kitchen-sink track comes off chaotic, yet comforting, even strangely familiar, like garbled radio frequencies picked up by an orbiting astronaut.