Hot off the heels of releasing their first album of new
music in 35 years (2015’s surprisingly strong “Citizen Zombie”), the Pop Group
has given us a real treat – a live album recorded during their 1979/1980
European run in support of the earth-shattering “How Much Longer Do We Tolerate
Mass Murder?”” (itself reissued late last year). Officially categorized by the band as a “bootleg”
(and the sometimes muffled sound certainly makes one think of clandestinely-traded
white label boots that used to circulate via some of our finer record shops and
catalogs), “The Boys Whose Head Exploded” makes you feel like yours is doing
that. Captured during their feral prime,
the clanging beautiful mess of their live show comes bleeding out of your
speakers via these nine tracks. There is
something so incredibly right and poignant to our moment in political time
right now about Mark Stewart caterwauling out “Our children shall rise up
against us / Because we are the ones to blame!”
And above and beyond the almighty din, that’s probably why the Pop Group
continue to be so germane – their trenchant poking and prodding of Thatcher-era
U.K. culture and standing up for causes of justice mirror our own time in which
we find ourselves questioning the role of the “people” in our own political ecosystem. The fractured funk of “Shake the Foundations”
and “There Are No Spectators’” skeletal groove show exactly why John Lydon was
so interested in Bruce Smith being a continued part of the P.i.L experience –
his tribal patterns and polyrhythms perfectly accentuate the paranoia in
Stewart’s lyrics and vocals. Far too
short at 41 minutes, the album is a thrilling snapshot of a band at their incendiary
best.
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