BRISTOL’S punk-funk pioneers may have only lasted four years, but in that time they won a reputation most bands spend decades seeking.

Now The Pop Group are back with their first album in 35 years to reveal what all the fuss was about in those monochrome days of late Seventies England.

Along with Gang of Four, The Pop Group was probably post-punk’s most political and subversive band. With good reason. They lived through the infamous winter of discontent, a time of eternal pessimism and bitter, industrial disputes that changed the course of British politics.

This was a broken country and it turned to Margaret Thatcher in desperation. No wonder left-wing bands like The Pop Group were unhappy.

In response they created fierce, but highly original music, with lyrics calling for resistance and unrest.

Has today’s political landscape really changed that much? The Pop Group clearly think not as lead singer Mark Stewart urges a “call to arms”, while behind him the band rages against every conceivable machine.

We are then treated to treatises such as The Immaculate Deception and St Outrageous, not to mention Nations, which addresses the evils of consumerism.

But for all this clattering agitprop angst, there is real beauty in some of the band’s music. Take away the dense ranting lyrics and Mad Truth, S.O.P.H.I.A. and Nowhere Girl become gorgeous little pop songs.

This slight softening in approach could be down to Paul Epworth, a long time fan of the band, who was signed up for production duties. But overall Citizen Zombie is a spitting, hostile offering. And in the wake of a depressingly bland Brit awards, doesn’t that make a welcome change?