Very weird.

It‰’s been 35 years since the legendary post-punk avant-garde band, The Pop Group, released an album. Although, they haven‰’t been recording for so long, the Bristol, UK band sounds about as cohesive and palatable as they‰’ve ever been. The first track of the album is absolutely terrible but if you wade past the first track you‰’ll find a very interesting mix of tastes combined to create one work of art. The Pop Group employ pop music‰’s Paul Epworth to produce Citizen Zombie. Yes, the same Paul Epworth that produced 21, Bruno Mars and Foster the People. A lot of the frantic dissonance is still there, but some of the tracks like “Mad Truth‰” and “S.O.P.H.I.A‰” sound super disco-like. These songs have the the uptempo drumming and slap bass parts combined with the weird ramblings of vocalist, Mark Stewart. The sounds on each of the songs are incredibly different though. “Nowhere Girl‰” heads for a more shoegaze distorted sound with speaker busting, full guitars and about a thousand(or so it sounds) vocal tracks. “Box 9‰” is a lot more traditional Pop Group sound and more like what you‰’d come to expect. Citizen Zombie is probably one of the most intriguing albums that has come out for a long time both for the personnel used and in general its all-over-the-place-ness sound. It only fitting that after so long a time the Pop Group might be unsure of their sound but Citizen Zombie goes in a direction no one would have expected.

RIYL: Captain Beefheart, Deerhoof, Talking Heads

Recommended Tracks: 2, 3, 6, 8, 11