Always a band with racked nerves, Gang of Four rein in their frayed energy on What Happens Next, compartmentalized into a broad tonal range and spacious mix. Wide-panned guitars, keyboards and auxiliary percussion cycle through banks of distortion, compression and dubby echo, carefully balanced in relation to each other and suspended purposefully around a pulsing mid-tempo centre. To paraphrase the old free jazz adage, it’s about the space between the sounds. The role of studio-as-instrument is crucial to understanding the Leeds post-punks’ approach to composition, perhaps never more so than on this collection of intricate modular arrangements.
Right from the rip-it-up-and-start-again intro, the band’s ninth full-length fixes its conceptual gaze resolutely on the thudding, burbling present, lyrically rendering a contemporary shitscape of hollow desire (“I’m into fucking and money”), simulacra (“We’re Facebook friends with celebrities”), systemic inequality (First World Citizen) and “sex text[s] on my phone.” At times, these preoccupations feel clumsy in their topicality, and it’s hard to tell whether GOF’s unthinkably long history as a Band That Has Things To Say makes this more or less forgivable.
Top track: The Dying Rays
Gang of Four play Lee’s Palace March 9.
