Although they've been a hip name to drop for ages and the fascination with all things brittle and Post-Punk over the past twelve months or so has again upped the value of their back catalogue's stock, in your reviewer's humble opinion it's no overstatement to say Leeds' Gang Of Four are one of the best bands of the past 25 years.
Formed in 1977's "Summer Of Hate", when three middle class students at Leeds University, Jon King (vocals), Andy Gill (guitar/ vocals) and Hugo Burnham (drums) advertised for a bassist and found local, working class lad Dave Allen, the Gang were very different from many of the identikit, safety-pin clad Punk goons, and took their influences from the cerebrally-inclined (such as writer Jean-Luc Godard), as well as obviously non-punk musical sources such as Parliament-Funkadelic and Leeds street politics; getting involved in marches against the neo-Nazi National Front Party who often frequently attacked local pubs frequented by the band and their cohorts The Mekons and Delta 5.
Not surprisingly, this melange produced startling music, informed by both George Clinton's potent, hardline funk and a dubwise mentality as well as the era's energy. Twice removed from any of Punk's yobbish anthems, though graced with equally hardline political and personal lyrical content from Gill and King, the band created something new and exciting which largely stands up to close scrutiny today.
The band's initial incarnation produced their most crucial material, so it's no great surprise that "A Brief History Of The Twentieth Century" concentrates on both their classic debut album "Entertainment!" and it's vastly under-rated follow-up "Solid Gold". Both these albums are responsible for true genius, with Allen and Burnham's supple, disciplined rhythms pushing Gill's fractured, cheesewire guitar into often unbelievable violence (check out "At Home He's A Tourist" and the blankets of feedback covering the still-confrontational "Anthrax" for all the proof you need) before shooting bolts of lightning through Jon King's herky-jerky lyrical invective.
It's true the Gang never really produced a traditional 'anthem' as such, though in "At Home He's A Tourist" and "Damaged Goods" they penned polemic-infused anthems of a sort. However, by "Solid Gold" (here yielding "A Hole In The Wallet," the brilliant "Cheeseburger" and Gill's relentlessly mired "Paralysed") they'd shacked up in a much darker place, and - following a last fine blast with "To Hell With Poverty" - Allen left, to be followed a little later by Burnham.
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In truth, the Gang never quite recovered either. Certainly, both the band's two final albums "Hard" and "Songs Of The Free" are much better than the dog's dinners some critics make them out to be, but something was missing, and the increasing commerciality creeping into tracks such as "Is It Love" and "Womantown" will startle anyone hoping for more in the vein of "Not Great Men" and "Return The Gift."
Having said that, there's still plenty to get the teeth into, though, with the sparse "I Will Be A Good Boy," and sarky "I Love A Man In Uniform" (with telling contributions from Allen's replacement Sara Lee) both deserving of better reputations. Also, the compilation sensibly signs off with the unforgiving flailing of "We Live As We Dream, Alone" - regularly used by way of intro by Michael Stipe during REM'S shows on their exhaustive "Green" tour - which proves Gill and King retained reserves of piss and vinegar right to the end.
Indeed - along with the praise regularly showered on them by bands as disparate as the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Helmet - the very fact that the G04 were one of only two bands REM would ever deign to open for (the other being The Beat), demonstrates the esteem they were held in. Don't simply rely on reputation, though, because even a cursory sample of "A Brief History Of The Twentieth Century" makes you realise the past has rarely sounded either so exhilarating or futuristic.
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