From the darkest recesses of 1970s Bristol they came, an aggro bunch of teenagers fired up by the righteous rhetoric of punk rock but with heads too full of funk, free jazz and Afrobeat rhythms to spend too long working out how to play Clash and Sex Pistols riffs. In four years (1977-’81) they released two albums and three singles - and a Peel session, naturally - of attritional, furiously primal music, and then split up, leaving musical scorch marks for future music historians to ponder over.
Then, in 2010, having seen their punk-funk template seized upon as inspiration by bands such as The Rapture, Mark Stewart, Gareth Sager and Bruce Smith re-formed as The Pop Group, and re-commenced their cavernous howls and tribal rites with no sign of visible flagging. 6 Music’s Marc Riley, a longtime fan, had them in for a session last year to support the re-release of their early compilation We Are Time. And they played the 6 Music Festival earlier this year, just as Citizen Zombie - their third album proper - was heading out to the shops.
Note: this is their second Glastonbury, having played first in 1979, when the facilities were a lot more basic.
From the darkest recesses of 1970s Bristol they came, an aggro bunch of teenagers fired up by the righteous rhetoric of punk rock but with heads too full of funk, free jazz and Afrobeat rhythms to spend too long working out how to play Clash and Sex Pistols riffs. In four years (1977-’81) they released two albums and three singles - and a Peel session, naturally - of attritional, furiously primal music, and then split up, leaving musical scorch marks for future music historians to ponder over.
Then, in 2010, having seen their punk-funk template seized upon as inspiration by bands such as The Rapture, Mark Stewart, Gareth Sager and Bruce Smith re-formed as The Pop Group, and re-commenced their cavernous howls and tribal rites with no sign of visible flagging. 6 Music’s Marc Riley, a longtime fan, had them in for a session last year to support the re-release of their early compilation We Are Time. And they played the 6 Music Festival earlier this year, just as Citizen Zombie - their third album proper - was heading out to the shops.
Note: this is their second Glastonbury, having played first in 1979, when the facilities were a lot more basic.
