The packaging of The Woohoo Revue’s, Dear Animals is splashed with dancing animals. Elephants, alligators, bears, frogs, lizards, and wildebeest. It’s a jungle party. It’s artwork that leaps to life; you can almost hear the chaotic rhythm of stamping hooves, the bustle and roar of the scene. And fittingly, the music this artwork accompanies is nothing less than chaotic, bustling and roaring.

The Woohoo Revue are a collection of Melbourne musos that banded together in 2008. Featuring members of The Red Eyes and The Counterfeit Gypsies, this newly born band is somewhat of a gypsy super group. Their music is entirely instrumental; the six-piece band consisting of drums, electric bass, twelve-string guitar, violin, trumpet and alto sax.
 
Dear Animals is a frenetic blend of Balkan melodies, latin flavours, swing and dance floor savvy. It is music in the essence of the traditional Roma culture of Eastern Europe. It is music that will make you feel as if you have fallen into the ring of a circus. It is music of celebration.
 
Opening track The Orient Express is so hectic I fear my stereo will combust. The melody sits just behind the beat, creating a full, frantic sound. Other traditional gypsy elements are observed, including the use of chromatic passages and fluid phrasing. Violinist Rebecca Wade shows extreme nimbleness; her bow skimming back and forth across the strings as fingers fly up and down the fingerboard, tossing notes high into the air. The violin melody is not unlike some works of Bela Bartok, exhibiting repeated chromatic runs tied with ornamental turns.
 
The strong presence of horns,together with the use of different modes creates the feel of being at a carnivale. This atmosphere is strengthened by the energized rhythm section. Nejatov Cocek fuses these elements and results in a piece that oozes with occasion. Again, principals from Eastern Europe Roma music are adhered to, this time through the improvised saxophone solo, which exhibits a melismatic, free style.
 
Last Drinks holds a completely different atmosphere. It’s a combination of weeping horns, rolling drums, and triple time signature that conjures up feelings of a scene in a black and white movie where the protagonist slowly wonders, hands in pockets, down a dimly lit street, looking for the pieces of his broken heart.
 
For the most part however, Dear Animals is solid toe-tapping. It’s not music made for IPods, it is social music. Every song holds such a strong sense of occasion. So make like the animals on the cover; grab a group of friends, go out under the sky and throw a party that lasts for days and dance to The Woohoo Revue.