REVIEW: Gang Of Four - 'Content'

The following review of Gang Of Four's first album in 16 years is probably as fair as you can get: if I slagged it off no-one could accuse me of "not understanding" this genre of music, because I am very keen on post-punk bands. If I was a big fan of this group's earlier work and I listened to this new LP in prejudice and judging it against their old material, then that would also make for an unfair review because I would simply be wanting something that sounds exactly like what they did in the past.

However somehow I am completely new to Gang Of Four, so I am judging this record on it's own merits, so this review is probably as fair and unbiased as you can get.

Despite not being familar with this group's other material, I can tell by these new tracks the groups that Gang Of Four probably influenced (Blur, Franz Ferdinand, The Futureheads, The Hives perhaps?) as the group mix up a brew of jerky riffs, funk basslines and occasionally odd lyrics. However this record, the first half in particular suffers from the fact that none of it sounds exciting at all. But by track 5 we have 'You'll Never Pay For The Farm', with its scathing riffs and lyrics laying into cunty bankers, which provides the album with a bit of life finally. It's just a shame it's followed by 'I Party All The Time' which is frankly just weak nonsense. Thankfully the remaining four tracks are the best on the album, the highlight being 'It Was Never Gonna Turn Out Too Good', an odd vocodered track completely at odds with the rest of the LP.

So 'Content' isn't a great introduction to this group, as there is a general lack of memorable songs and a lot of ideas they should've maybe worked on more, but it does have some promising moments, promising enough for me to add their earlier work to the list of music I must investigate in the future. 6/10