Pop Will Eat Itself deserve to be more celebrated. The Stourbridge outfit were one of the first 1980s bands to realise the potential of smashing punky indie-rockin’ into hip hop and electronic dance.
They had hits, many great songs, and covered the same territory that later gave The Prodigy mega-success (Delete Everything contains a rackety reimagining of the two groups' 1994 collaboration, "Their Law"). Unfortunately, a combination of their major label stabbing them in the back, and being perceived by some critics as cartoonishly adolescent, faded them out in the mid-Nineties. But they returned a few years ago and maintain an urgent liveliness.
They retain two original members, including Graham Crabb. Fellow frontman Clint Mansell, now a successful Hollywood film composer, has long been replaced by Mary Byker, once of fellow “grebo” Midlanders Gaye Bykers on Acid. On the band’s ninth album, the pair fire shouty couplets at each other, as if the Licensed to Ill-era Beastie Boys never went away.
Delete Everything – a typically sharp title – has vim and spirit, the thrill of pelting steroid breakbeats with house piano, samples, biker bar riffage, and an earthquake of noisy effects. In truth, though, murky production lets things down. Where there should be clarity, the lyrics smudge into the mix, and the beats don’t punch out as they should (and do in the band’s best work). This is a shame. I saw PWEI last year, and they were fantastic live, some of these new songs as persuasive as old favourites.
Despite such issues, there’s fun to be had on the nostalgic “Disco Misfits”, a celebration of Nineties youth tribes, “Vive Le Rok”, their tribute to Vivienne Westwood (“All the anarchists are free/They’ll kick you up the arts”), the demented happy-hardcore-meets-metal of “Play a Fast ‘Un”, the closing slowie “Where There’s Hope”, and “Never Mind the Botox”, whose culture-spume list wordplay recalls their anthem “Can U Dig It”.
This may not be their great comeback album but go see them live. They're on tour in October/November. They’ll take your head off.
Below: check out Pop Will Eat Itself's rejig of their collaboration with The Prodigy, originally "Their Law", now "Their Law (Ain't Our Law)"
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