Alan Rusbridger, the new album from Woog Riots, is set for release on 11 March. Its title, taking the name of the Guardian editor-in-chief who oversaw the publication of the Edward Snowden documents, is entirely fitting for a collection that once against showcases the music of a band whose playful exterior has always provided a suitably off-key medium for archly observant comment.
It's a theme runs throughout the collection: 'Moscow Domodedovo' is the airport at which Snowden spent forty days during his enforced exile, while 'Gentrification' applies Heaven 17-like grooves to the depiction of a world careering towards financially-dominated inertia, hidden behind blank promises of greater freedoms from an increasingly morally bankrupt west.
However, don't get the impression that Alan Rusbridger is no more than a Housemartins-styled poppy romp through a future dystopia. As usual, there's far greater depth to the collection than that. 'George Harrison' has a gleefully unpretentious air of pop culture celebration about it, something else that's omnipresent at the heart of the Woog Riots sound. 'The Zombie System' offers greater philosophical depth behind its sing-a-long exterior, digging away at the existential heart of The Walking Dead and proclaiming a pure and brutal truth: in a world ruled by bankers and multi-nationals, we don't need a zombie apocalypse to bring about oblivion. You can hear it in my February show on Dandelion Radio.
The album's available on the From Lo-Fi to Disco label (distributed by Shellshock in the UK) as a download and limited edition green vinyl. For information on where you can get it, check here.
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