A reissue that brings the band’s second and fourth releases onto one disc, but for once, not in reverse chronological order.
With a punk-funk unity prefiguring the likes of The Rapture and Franz Ferdinand, The Gang Of Four compounded sparse, elliptic riffing with radical politics that cited the then emerging entertainment media as yet another state apparatus. Darkly experimental and relying on the edgy, insistent clout of repetition as a means of driving home their intense anti-ideological statements, the band released the grossly overlooked classic ‘Entertainment’ album in 1979 to a public increasingly dissatisfied with the surly, weightless apathy of punk. And it was this original line-up consisting of Jon King (vocals), Andy Gill (guitar), Dave Allen (bass) and Hugo Burnham (drums) that went on to record Solid Gold and the Another Day/Another Dollar EP.
Regarded by some as an album of ‘canonical’ proportions, ‘Solid Gold’ sees the band at their most persuasive. ‘Cheeseburger’ levels some tasty shots at McDonalds whilst ‘Outside the Trains Don’t Run on Time’ sets a hair-pin on resurgent fascists. It’s not always pretty, it’s not always catchy – but it does come out with one or two classic one-liners: “To Hell With Poverty/We’ll Get Drunk On Cheap Red Wine”.
The clamour for passionate rock & roll stars may have passed for most oiks thesedays, but the Gang Of Four have a manifesto for change that extends well beyond the future.