Influential post-punkers Gang Of Four reunited in 2004 after seemingly every new group at the time started dropping their name as a reference point (an accolade that, arguably, now belongs to The Band or maybe Bruce Springsteen), but other than the almost completely pointless “let’s re-record our old songs with more drums in the mix” compilation Return The Gift in ’05, they’ve offered little in the way of new material. That’s about to change with the just-announced January 25 release of Content, Gang Of Four’s first album of original material since 1995’s Shrinkwrapped. (Of course, “Gang Of Four” is once again essentially just co-leaders Jon King and Andy Gill these days, but whatever.)
The Yep Roc-released album will come in both CD and vinyl formats, as well as something called the Ultimate Content Can, which includes “the new album on CD, a book version of an art piece Jon and Andy have done on ceramic tiles depicting the last 40 years of world history, a book of lyrics, a book of Rotoscoped photographs of the band's emotions, phials of band members' blood, and a scratch-and-sniff booklet which reflects the key areas of human activity.” We have no idea how you translate human activity into smells, and the packaging costs for shipping tubes of blood with every album must be astronomical (Also, "photographs of the band's emotions"? While you're at it, why not include a fucking rainbow in a jar?), but speaking of Springsteen, this certainly makes that upcoming Darkness On The Edge Of Town box set look kind of pedestrian in comparison.