Pop Will Eat Itself

Once upon a time when people actually bought records, any independent artist obtaining a chart position in the Top 40 was seen as something as a moral victory among the alternative underground. An achievement in itself having infiltrated the mainstream, it also made Thursday nights that little bit more bearable, sitting in front of the television with the parents waiting for those three minutes of subversion inbetween the Stock, Aitken and Waterman manufactured plastic pop pap of the day. One such band that seemed to breach the rules of conformity on a regular basis were Pop Will Eat Itself, a collective from Stourbridge in the West Midlands whose multi-faceted mash ups of punk, hip hop, rock and pop heralded a succession of bonafide hit records between 1989 and 1994. Like all good things, PWEI - as they were affectionately known - came to an unceremonious end, swept away by the emerging tide of Britpop.

Gone but not forgotten, it was no surprise when Pop Will Eat Itself announced their return last year amidst a wave of reformations that seem to take place on an annual basis. What did raise a few eyebrows was the fact that only one original member - Graham Crabb, one of the band's main songwriters and co-vocalists - would be participating in this reunion of sorts. Bearing in mind former PWEI mainstays Clint Mansell, Richard March and Fuzz Townshend have all gone on to enjoy successful careers in various projects since, it's perhaps not that surprising they didn't wish to be involved this time around. Having recruited an entire new band, including former members of Pitchshifter and Gaye Bykers On Acid among others, it was always going to be an uphill battle convincing the luddites that this was anything more than a pale imitation of Pop Will Eat Itself as everyone knew them. How wrong could they be...

Sure, it's difficult to not want to wallow in nostalgia every now and then, particularly for something that soundtracked one's youth for so many years. However, there's a rediscovered urgency about PWEI v.2K12. Last year's long player, New Noise Designed By A Sadist, the first record to bear the name Pop Will Eat Itself in seventeen years, suggested they were anything but a spent force living off a legacy created two decades previous. Combining the dual vocal interplay of yore; Mary Byker now assuming Mansell's role alongside the familiar tones of Crabb; with an industrial metal spark created by players borne out of years playing with the likes of Gary Numan, Burning Age and Pitchshifter respectively.

With such an incisive blend of protagonists, it's little surprise that the older material also finds itself injected with a new urgency this evening. Playing to an audience of all ages rather than the normal forty-something crowd that tends to attach itself to the nostalgia circuit like a limpet clinging to a rock, it's clear PWEI have picked up a new generation of fans along the way. What this means is that newer songs like 'Oldskool Cool' and 'Disguise' find themselves equally well received as old classics such as 'Dance Of The Mad Bastards' and 'Get The Girl, Kill The Baddies', the band's one and only top ten hit single. Pandemonium ensues when they delve into their self-proclaimed "disco segment"; early singles 'Def Con One' and 'Can You Dig It?' rapturously devoured alongside 1988's 'There Is No Love Between Us Anymore', the oldest number from their extensive back catalogue in the current set.

Returning for an encore of 'Their Law', their collaboration with The Prodigy from 1994 and 'Wise Up Sucker', their chart near-miss from 1989, Pop Will Eat Itself's relevance in 2012 (check out the lyrically astute 'Ich Bin Ein Auslander', impeccably delivered this evening, for further proof) seems all but assured. Whether the original line-up ever work together again remains to be seen. However, the 2012 version does more than enough to justify the Pop Will Eat Itself moniker, while suggesting one more great record may well be in the pipeline. Watch this space...