Release Date: Mar 27, 2012
Genre(s): Pop/Rock, Alternative/Indie Rock, Experimental Rock
Record label: Future Noise Music
Music Critic Score
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[a]Mark Stewart[/a] was once so stern that, with The Pop Group, he titled an album ‘For How Much Longer Do We Tolerate Mass Murder?’. He hasn’t mellowed since, but he has made friends: collaborators here range from Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry and Richard Hell to members of Massive Attack, and Bobby Gillespie (who guests on ‘Autonomia’). Thankfully, it’s less safety-in-numbers than trouble-loves-company.
Mark Stewart's eighth solo record is not an easy listen, and I'm almost certain he would take that as a compliment. More than 30 years after founding seminal post-punk outfit the Pop Group, Stewart remains a fireband intent on creating skull-splintering sounds and society-skewering words. The past year has given him plenty to rail against, and his industrial dubstep is a suitably seismic din for a protest record.