Music
'Anthrax' never sounded so good
08:51 AM EDT on Friday, September 30, 2005
PROVIDENCE -- You don't have to go far to hear contemporary pop
music in which people mope. And it's pretty easy to hear the cartoonish
near-celebrations of anger in nu-metal, rap metal, death metal, etc.
It's been rare lately, however, to hear music that has a steady,
unnerving malevolence -- the kind that actually feels good. But Gang of
Four are back.
Starting an American tour last night at Lupo's Heartbreak Hotel, the
reconstituted British quartet played most of their first album, 1979's
Entertainment! (which has become the template for a slew of today's big
rock deals such as Franz Ferdinand and Bloc Party), and a few songs from
later records.
As with the forthcoming record Return the Gift, which contains
re-recordings of old songs, the live performance allowed guitarist Andy
Gill to let loose in relation to the group's clipped, lo-fidelity
classic recordings. And he took full advantage, knifing through songs
with a skinny guitar sound, staccato phrasing and more-than-occasional
feedback squawks (most notably on "Anthrax" and "To Hell with Poverty"),
as well as a baleful scowl on his face. The "Anthrax" intro was
particularly impressive, with Gill wringing atonal swoops out of his
guitar by bending and twisting the neck and body.
Frontman Jon King shouted and declaimed like a man about half his age,
delivering lyrical takedowns of romance ("Love'll get you like a case of
anthrax/ And that's one thing I don't want to catch" from "Anthrax"),
capitalist culture ("This heaven gives me migraine" from "Natural's Not
In It"). All the while he leaped, wiggled and did an approximation of
tai chi. And "He'd Send in the Army," sung by Allen and Gill, featured
King keeping time by pounding on a microwave oven with a baseball bat.
All the while, drummer Hugo Burnham and bassist Dave Allen pounded out
dance-floor rhythms as filtered through a bleak British industrial
landscape -- danceable but more chilling than celebratory. "To Hell With
Poverty" came straight from Eurodisco, for example, while "At Home He's
a Tourist" is what the Talking Heads could've sounded like if they
hadn't settled for quirky. But at the same time, rockers such as
"Damaged Goods" and "I Found That Essence Rare" were hard-charging.
Anytime a long-dead band reunites, there's a fear that they won't clear
the bar of their older work, and that, like Willie Mays flopping around
in center field, their older selves will ruin fans' memories. Sure,
there were one or two first-night-of-the-tour glitches. But last night,
Gang of Four proved themselves every bit as energetic, and as vital, as
a quarter-century ago.
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