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Reviews

Gang of Four, ‘Content’ (Yep Roc)

After releasing one of pop music’s most lacerating sociopolitical broadsides ever (1979 debut Entertainment!), featuring one of the most unconventionally aggressive guitarists ever (Andy Gill), this immeasurably influential U.K. post-punk quartet set a standard almost equaled by their own early ’80s releases and rarely matched elsewhere. Twenty years since their last album of new material, Gill and vocalist Jon King spit out splintered riffs and skewered tropes that approximate the band’s peak on grabby party-starters (“Who Am I”) and mesmerizing midtempo grooves (“A Fruitfly in the Beehive”). The rest are only slightly damaged goods.