I’ve been listening to Gang of Four’s new album, Content, on Spotify this evening.  It really is a magnificent album right from the metronic funk of the opening track to the abrupt end of the last track.  In fact it is nearly as good as their debut album Entertainment! and that is not damning it with faint praise or anything – Go4 need not be ashamed of not surpassing that album’s quality: nobody else has in the thirty-odd years since it came out.Gang of Four are famously influential, with bands like REM, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Nirvana, and a whole raft of more recent British bands (Bloc Party, Futureheads, Franz Ferdinand) citing them as influences, so it is about time they jumped on their own bandwagon with their first album of new songs since 1995’s Shrinkwrapped, which I liked even though it was generally thought to be not up to scratch.

There is not a duff track on here, so it is hard to pick highlights, but You’ll Never Pay For The Farm starts with an archetypal Go4 guitar attack before the driving bass and drums kick in, I party All The Time is like a punk version of a Chic song, and Do As I Say is a brilliant sinuous track.

The band haven’t stood still.  While there are echoes of the band’s early days there are still experimental pieces like It Was Never Going To Turn Out Too Good, which is the only track that will need to grow on you.

One thing is for certain, the title of this is surely using ‘Content’ as a noun and not an adjective – nobody has ever described Gang of Four as being content with anything.  Is it too early to start talking about the best album of 2011?