About The Mob
The Mob is an English anarcho-punk band, formed in Yeovil, Somerset in the late 1970s. “Tribe” is the tribe, a community to which belongs the indescribable Marc Wilson, a hippie idealist, famous for his blood-red dreadlocks, who spends his time in squats and collaborates with members of Crass to denounce Thatcher's political violence or war crimes. Moreover, their album “Let The Tribe Increase” was released on All The Madmen Records, a label that he set up as a self-taught artist and which had no real address. His group was close to the anarchist movement, the authors of the fanzine “Kill Your Pet Puppy” also took care of record management, without adopting the urgency and style of the band.On the contrary, it is dark and quite defeatist. The guitars, as well as the vocal lines, see little light and do not incite rebellion. Usually, it shakes to federate, here, the observation is rather bitter. “You're now the slayed” says Mark Mob on “Slayed”, while simplistic riffs chop all optimism into small pieces. The bass is never put aside, as on the groovy “Dance On (You Fool)”. The songs remain brutal in a way, they are short, messy, with a basic rhythm, but Wilson's low timbre gives a premium to disenchantment (“Gates Of Hell”).
The Mob does not deny its roots. However, he incorporates elements of Joy Division and Killing Joke into his music, and The Damned and The Clash are never far from the turntable. There are choruses that harangue, a certain laxity in the singing, a popular side and choirs to rally the audience. But the bass and the riffs remain dark (“Another Day Another Death”). The band sends everything flying not out of utopia but simply by default, for lack of meaning, and the members do not give in to the pressure of their entourage to take up the cause of societal issues. They are interested in emotions.
The writing of “Let The Tribe Increase” is superb, as proven by the languid and relaxed passage of “Our Life Our World” which follows this repeated announcement in a loop, flexible drums and cool guitar. On the mid-tempo “Raised In A Prison”, Mark Mob plays the disarray, in a touching and clumsy way. As for “I Wish”, slowed down, phlegmatic, he screams his voice repeating this mantra: “I wish to die. It must be fun to die, cause so may people do it” / “I wish to die. It must be fun to die because so many people do it.”
Browse all Songs and Lyrics published on The Mob