I don’t remember any of the early-80s television shows the Pitchfork review refers to, so I couldn’t tell you if the description of “Panther Dash” as Hawaii Five-O-meets-Speed Racer is at all accurate. What I can tell you, though, is that the faintly ridiculous and apparently kitsch description of the Go! Team doesn’t hold water; it’s not as though the band does covers of theme songs for television shows starring Lee Majors.

If anything, the sextet from Brighton excels in the one thing I haven’t gotten nearly enough of this year: the bright-eyed, full-speed-ahead wall of sound. Drive to it, dance to it, do what you want—whenever I feel like a pick-me-up, this has become my go-to song (no pun intended). The one shame is that Thunder, Lightning, Strike is a UK-only release so far; with the press they’ve been getting in North America, it’s possible this will change, but I’m not one for waiting. This will probably be the second import album on my best-of-year list, which would be cooler if it didn’t cost so much damned money.