Top bloke, that Mark Stewart. In person he can talk for England; opinionated and knowledgeable, and often with a humorous, self-mocking tone, in that distinct Bristol brrr. He also wears his politics on his sleeve; a continuing distrust of big business, big government, and a conspiratorial wariness that stays the right side of paranoia. And the band he fronts, The Pop Group, punch above their weight in terms of influence, particularly on the likes of Nick Cave who, searching for the post-punk holy grail, upon arriving from Australia, found it in this band.

Their profound music and on-going influence is down to the earth shattering originality they had at the tail end of the 70s. Some of the very first Brits to sample the delights of the nascent hip-hop scene in New York, they took that on board, and concocted a unique fusion of funk, dub, noise, disco-punk, and free jazz, and allied that with deep, non-conformist politics and an avante-garde sensibility. Not particularly accessible then, they haven’t changed much since they reunited in 2010, sparked by an invitation by big fan, The Simpsons originator Matt Groening, when he was guest curating an All Tomorrow’s Parties event that year.

This is their second post-reunion album, and only their fourth ever. And not only does it feature Dennis Bovell behind the controls, the same man who produced their 1979 debut, Y, but Hank Shocklee takes command of three tracks. He, of course, was central to the Bomb Squad, producers of the first three Public Enemy albums, an act who similarly imbibed their bass and rap-driven politics with a dense claustrophobia and innovative cacophony that shook the world of music back in the late 80s.

But, despite frontman Mark Stewart’s claim that Honeymoon On Mars is “a stand against manufactured hate, a hypersonic journey into a dystopian future full of alien encounters and sci-fi lullabies,” the new work doesn’t quite match up to their previous three albums, including 2015’s Citizen Zombie; a lack of coherence infects the album as a whole, but through which sparkle some typically inspirational The Pop Group moments.

It’s not for a want of trying though as Stewart, along with original members Gareth Sager, Bruce Smith and Dan Catsis, who joined the group in 1979, once again throw the veritable kitchen sink into the mix. Stewart yelps and shouts his incisive, if seemingly random social and political critiques, the band cutting, mutating, pasting, juxtaposing, attacking, and running off free to experiment along with the help of both Bovell and Shocklee.

But give it time and space, and the magic of The Pop Group does shine through here and there, particularly on the Shocklee-produced tracks ‘City of Eyes’, and ‘War Inc.’, both of which amp up the metallic funk aspect of the group, and imparts a groove and a meaty depth that gives the songs a sense of purpose rather than being just a difficult listen, which The Pop Group are prone to. Tracks such as the brooding dub, but melody-free ‘Days Like These’, the dark and haphazard ‘Michael 13’, and the leaden ‘Heaven?’, all suffer from Stewart’s sometimes off-key and yowling vocal, and a surprising lack of musical dynamism. However, ‘Pure Ones’ rides a neat big bass and drum combo, cavernous keyboards, and guitar riff motif, momentarily collapsing upon itself before re-asserting itself, while ‘Little Town’ flows along some tasty slap-bass, funky guitar and sizzling keys. And ‘Zipperface’ drives along a vaguely menacing hard house beat as Stewart inquires, “Who bought your silence, who enslaved your mind?”

The band have come back at a time when the unwritten post-punk programme of anti-apathy, and pro-social and political engagement and confrontation has come back with a vengeance in this post-financial crash era of rising populism and anti-estabishmentarianism. And as always, their musically free spiritedness and experimental bent leads them down alleys both dark and enlightening. Stewart has said he wants the band, “To be an explosion at the heart of the commodity.” While they may not always achieve that, the point is they are going to have a bloody good try.
Jeff Hemmings