The Pop Group- Honeymoon on Mars (2016)

The Pop Group- Honeymoon on Mars (2016)

By: Erreh Svaia

“The new normal is divide and rule…”

Something weird is going on within the music scene,  Helmet a very cool modern metal band that I listened to it a lot years ago just issued a kind of mediocre album, while NOLA´s Crowbar, a great band I also listened to as a teenager, issued a record that shows the sludge band evolving at a furious pace, moving fast with the times, in the middle of Brexit we should have been watching the return of legendary anarchist UK´s band Crass, but instead there's a new record by Steve Ignorant former front man of the band, and in the middle of all that, what could be a dream record by the legendary post punk innovative band The Pop Group comes along, a band that at the end of the punk rock craze in England, started fusing dub, punk and free jazz, in order (later funk and hip hop) to become a referent for future Bristol acts like Massive Attack and Tricky, and more futurist bands like Nine Inch Nails, considering the production team of dub's great producer Dennis Bovell teaming with the infamous Bomb Squad member Hank Shocklee, part of the creators of the brutal Public Enemy sound, you should have the equivalent of a Molotov cocktail in front and behind the mixing boards, weirdly enough, Honeymoon on Mars hardly sounds like the revolutionary recording ready to set the world on fire that we should be expecting, but don't despair about it, that doesn't mean this is a bad recording, is a truly bad ass recording, hard edged, rude, rough and messy as hell, the type of stuff this band equally influenced by dub, hip hop, free jazz, William S. Burroughs, Miles Davis,Captain Beefheart and anarchy, is capable of doing, the vibrant production and overtones of Bovell are quickly put to the front, giving depth to the intriguing noisy delivery of the band on Instant Hello, yes, the disjointed sound quality jumps right in front of us, the guitar screeching gets interlocked with synths blasts, all these while the great Mark Stewart desperate insane ranting appears in the center of this whole whirlwind. 

City of Eyes has better luck, a steady pounding beat and funky bass and guitars, thanks to Dan Catsis and Gareth Sager respectively, as the band is able to create that discomforting trip The Pop Group is all about, a chaotic circus with Mark Stewart dancing frantically right in the center of the turmoil, the dance beat this band gloriously mixes with a full-fledged noise artillery, although at this point the legendary Shcoklee is nowhere to be seen, or heard, it's obvious that the group is having lots of fun and enjoying the process and in full control of the sessions, with the little quirky recording, sometimes daring to mix together such disparate worlds like dub, noise, and hip hop on the confusing Michael 13 (that even kind of suggest me Sun Ra´s synth experiments), but things get really good on the bubbly War Inc., featuring also ear damaging drum blasts and ear piercing guitars.

Captain Beefheart's musical mayhem and Can's metaphysical brand of immortal beats are suggested during the tour de force named Pure Ones, featuring vampire like keyboard, dub beats and gloomy tribal drumming, reaffirming on Little Town their vocation as full on noise terrorists, giving proof of the enormously good state post punk as a genre enjoys these days, going totally crazy on the wild and experimental Days Like These, with Catsis ground shattering bass.

Honeymoon on Mars is a bit disappointing record, one would expect a really explosive recording from this band and form the top notch producers, but who knows exactly what happened during the sessions, the band still sounds hard edged and full of ideas, years haven’t made them lose their edge, but somehow Honeymoon on Mars lacks the overwhelming power of previous Pop Group or Mark Stewart´s solo recordings, a seriously missed opportunity, but obviously not the end for this legendary subversive band never afraid of trying new things.