THE BEST BEFORE DATE - 1979 - Love Like Anthrax by Gang of Four

With their 1979 debut Entertainment Gang of Four released an album of material they'd honed and polished from years of pub gigs in the backstreets of Leeds and beyond. If any band captured the Zeitgeist of post punk's political activism Gang of Four were it. In Thatcher's Britain the lack of any effective political opposition ( remind you of anything| now) meant progressive activism moved outside parliament and fell on the shoulders of contemporary music culture. Gang of Four were the most clearly left wing of the lot, flying the red flag for socialism high. I can't imagine few bands would do so these days. But one has to remember the collapse of the USSR was still over ten years away and such idealistic political puritanism was still possible in the late 70's. Their stridency in this regard produces on Entertainment a clear and consistent musical statement. It is quite rightly still rated as one of the best releases of the post punk era. 

The sound stripped back and sparse, is built around the axe slaying of the late great Andy Gill. Love Like Anthrax concludes Entertainment with such a cool insouciance. A type of dry minimalism permeates it that utterly captures ones attention from the start. The highly amped nature of Gill's guitar playing means it forever teeters on the edge of surrendering itself up to the most glorious of feedback noise. Love Like Anthrax begins, as many of Gang of Four's best tracks do, with the electric buzz and crackling of Gill's guitar into which the drums later pound in, imposing structural discipline. That all this sonic free form sturm und drang is going to be put to good use. But having woken us up with this wall of despairing racket, we then get deadpan vocals and an echoing voice running at cross purposes with each other. Interspersed with cultural analysis, this is that rare species the anti- love song with a commentary running through it.

Woke up , desperation AM,
(Love crops up a lot as something to sing about, because most groups)
What I've been saying won't say them again,
(make most of their songs about falling in love,or how happy they are)
My heads not empty its full with my brain
( to be in love - you occasionally wonder why these groups)
The thoughts I 'm thinking, like piss down a drain
(do sing about it all the time, piss down the drain)

As you can imagine, though Gang of Four were more than capable of being catchy songwriters, this clever juxtaposition of song with reflexive contextual analysis was not to everyone's cuppa tea. Combined with their consistently abrasive approach to music making, this meant their singles never broke into the top 50 and their highest album chart position was with Entertainment at number 45. But Love Like Anthrax remains this beautiful well mounted pearl of a thing to listen to.