Content

It is simply impossible to pass by Gang Of Four’s eighth album

Despite that the English post-punk Gang Of Four’s popularity peak was in the late 1970s – early 1980s the genre’s fans have been tracing its creative work carefully and anticipating new creation. The band known for its topical lyrics was formed by vocalist Jon King, guitarist Andy Gill, bassist Dave Allen and drummer Hugo Burnham. In 1995 King and Gill recorded a successful album Shrinkwrapped, and after that the initial line-up got together only in 2004 to tour the world and later record the compilation Return the Gift which saw the light of the day in October, 2005. The line-up changed in 2006: Thomas McNeice now played on bass and Mark Heaney got to the drum kit. Though the new millennium found the band interested in lighter styles of disco and dance punk, the themes of the songs have remained the same adapting to the contemporary world’s reality. Which is why its new, eighth studio album Content released in January and offering original material for the first time in sixteen years has combined in it very serious issues concerning Internet addiction and its consequences with the music which can by no means be called boring or monotonous. It is simply impossible to pass by such a record.

Introspection, pop culture’s influence, the general state of sleeping

Gang Of Four’s debut album Entertainment! released in 1979 attracted the audience’s attention at once with the texts in which Jon King asked questions worrying many a mind. They dealt with human relations in the modern society’s conditions. Thirty-two years later these conditions have become absolutely different and served the reason for the human relations issue’s getting dozens of times more important. Self-identification, shared feelings, real love and friendship – all these notions appear often in the statuses of social networks’ members and can be come across in the real life very rarely. This is a very brief and concise way to describe what Gang Of Four is singing about on Content. Some songs on this record are devoted to introspection, others reveal the existing standard speech and behavior habits of people living under pop culture’s influence, the third open the listeners’ eyes to the general state of sleeping. In short, Gang Of Four still finds it inessential to be happy or optimistic and sing about falling in love. In its trademark sharp, obtrusive manner it calls everyone to think of one’s life and realize it is high time to wake up and take responsibility for it in one’s own hands.

Content is very reminiscent of the band’s early works

Three-four minutes have always been enough for Gang Of Four to express the song’s basic message, and the album Content is no exception. It offers ten tracks lasting a bit more than half an hour all together during which you get more important information than from several news breaks. Musically these compositions are very reminiscent of the band’s early works, they feature many distorted guitars, vocals in which madness alternates with teasing and sarcastic laughter and the most powerful drum flows. Commercials’ influence on the modern man’s psychics is the bases of the opener She Said 'You Made A Thing of Me' with an effective drum work, whereas heavy guitars and King’s rapping step in the foreground on You Don't Have to Be Mad. One of the central numbers is the nervous Who Am I?, in which the self-identification question remains open though the circumstances prevailing us from answering it are clearly revealed. The tensely melodious song I Can't Forget Your Lonely Face is addressed to everyone who realizes his or her loneliness in the crowd of analogous peers, and the punk number I Party All the Time portraits the modern young man unwilling to face the boring, to one’s mind, sober day-to-day life. A bit calmer track A Fruitfly in the Beehive is built on an interesting metaphor, and the almost pessimistic composition It Was Never Gonna Turn Out Too Good features fantastic electronic effects. The album closes with I Can See from Far Away, another original philosophic punk number. On the whole the album Content is undoubtedly one of the best in Gang Of Four’s discography reminding of its best times and offering the material which still inspires thousands of beginning musicians.