Perhaps understandably, the GANG OF FOUR's reputation these days rests on their stunning debut album, "Entertainment": a razor-sharp, politically-edgy platter dripping with hard-boiled funk punk and social comment, plus a notorious song about condoms ("At Home He's A Tourist") that effectively scuppered their potential debut 'TOP OF THE POPS' appearance.
Enough to happily forge a legend, sure, but the fact that the remainder of the Leeds-based collective's oeuvre is shamefully dismissed out of hand is a grievous error, especially when we're talking about "Entertainment"s erstwhile follow-up, "SOLID GOLD" from 1981.
Taut, uncompromising and often unremittingly bleak lyrically, "SOLID GOLD" admittedly did push the original GO4 envelope as far as feasibly possible and the post-release touring sadly culminated in the unfortunate loss of bassist Dave Allen. However, if we're speaking purely in artistic tongues (and we are,pardner),"SOLID GOLD" is quite probably the last word in the GANG OF FOUR's achievements.
Now repackaged with the original quartet's final EP, "ANOTHER DAY,ANOTHER DOLLAR" ("To Hell With Poverty"? - fuckin' right on,suckers!),"SOLID GOLD" now comes with endorsing sleevenotes from the late Michael Hutchence and HELMET's Page Hamilton, who along with the RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS (whose first LP,GO4 guitarist Andy Gill would later produce) are at least three world-straddling units owing serious debts to the Gang.
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Opening track "Paralysed" sets out the album's stall instantly. Unrepentently fatalistic, cloaked by the spindliest of funk frameworks, it finds singer Jon King dolefully deadpanning "blinkered...paralysed...flat on my back." As statements of intent go, this ain't so much "fuck you" as "I'm fucked." Indeed, Michael Stipe once expressed interest in covering it for a (presumably never to happen?) solo LP: now that would have been a fascinating four minutes of anyone's time!
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