Honeymoon on Mars

It's clear that The Pop Group are back in full swing. [Dec 2016, p.90]

Vocalist Mark Stewart’s unending salt-and-vigour vocals on songs like City Of Eyes and Zipperface combine brilliantly with a space-dub electro palette, and the results are thrilling.

Bovelle’s dub skills ensure there’s depth and disturbance in the band’s angry bricolages of whines, whirrs and harsh, stabbing guitars dancing around Mark Stewart’s edgy, political caterwauling on tracks like “Instant Halo” and “Pure Ones”, while Shocklee cooks up a bulldozer funk maelstrom of splintering sounds for “Burn Your Flag” and “City Of Eyes”.

Honeymoon on Mars isn't up to the level of the Pop Group's finest recordings, but it's still punk/funk agit-prop that's fearless and unafraid to strike, and if anything, their brand of troublemaking is more deeply needed now than ever before.

With Bovell subjecting the nimble Pure Ones to his spacy, Channel One-esque trickery and City Of Eyes’ monster groove capable of electrifying the most torpid dancefloor, Honeymoon On Mars is never in danger of getting lost in space.

Instant Halo is a reminder that the band's deepest roots are not in the snappy guitars of post-punk, nor the industrial-electro beats that inspired the likes of Trent Reznor, but a dub foundation that ensures the The Pop Group remain as danceable as they are confrontational.

In short: challenging stuff. [Dec 2016, p.113]

The Pop Group’s name has always been a bit ironic, but strangely enough, a more focused, fine-tuned, pop sensibility is what they needed here to make this album a more accessible type of strange.

They're entering into new territory now and have yet to push as far out as they need to. [Nov 2016, p.62]

On most of Honeymoon On Mars, the band seems resigned to the apocalypse and modern society’s devolution, resulting in a shockingly limp record overflowing with empty bluster.