Gang Of Four / Content

Gang Of Four
Content
(Neu Groenland Records)

No ceremonies, no curtains, no intro sequences; the first Gang of Four album in sixteen years gets straight down to business. Seeing the rejuvenated band in action last year, Jon King was swinging from the venue lights as if the years hadn't tamed his inner wild-child, and this record similarly captures a band who can ignite sparks at will, despite having formed in 1978.
Why 'Content'? According to Andy Gill, it's "in recognition of the way every creative form has been reduced to just that: content, the obligatory filling for the advertising sandwich." This perceptiveness of the time we live in runs throughout the record, which alternately slides down the surface of culture in a celebration of confusion, or throws its arms in the air and admits "I don't know if what I know is true".
As I mentioned before going off on an intro sequence, this record has no intro sequence; we're straight into lockdown from the start, with a predatory groove of scratched bass riffs and tribal drums. Opener 'She Said You Made A Thing Of Me' is dangerous-sounding, but not in a threatening sense - more in the sense that it offers a night time thrill-ride, a seat on a motorbike, a pill on an outstretched palm.
This hedonism continues into 'You Don't Have To Be Mad', which feels like a series of intense flashbacks to a night which either went too far or didn't go far enough. At the opposite end of the spectrum 'I Party All The Time' looks back on the scene after one too many hangovers; "Every day you wish you could repent," sings King, conceding that "I'm not innocent" over some electro-shock guitar riffs and dance beats.
The most moving moment on the album is also the most disembodied; 'It Was Never Gonna Turn Out Too Good' is a semi-defeated lament, with a robot-effect on the voice lending a strange poignancy to lines like "The world will end in fire or it will end in ice / your fortunes depend on the roll of a dice".
This is however, a Gang of Four album - with as much energy invested in the stomping funk riffs as the intelligent lyrics. Still as bold and combustible as a clenched fist, 'Content' is a remarkably good comeback.