Pop Will Eat Itself
This Is the Day...This Is the Hour...This Is This!

RCA    9742-2-R  (1989)

Rock/Pop
CD, 15   Tracks, 51:19  Length
01 PWEI Is a Four Letter Word Adam Mole; Graham Crabb 01:13
02 Preaching to the Perverted Adam Mole; Clint Mansell; Graham Crabb; Richard March 04:26
03 Wise Up! Sucker Adam Mole; Clint Mansell; Graham Crabb; Richard March 03:15
04 Sixteen Different Flavours of Hell Adam Mole; Clint Mansell; Graham Crabb; Richard March 01:23
05 Inject Me Graham Crabb 03:50
06 Can U Dig It? Clint Mansell 04:31
07 The Fuses Have Been Lit Adam Mole; Clint Mansell; Graham Crabb; Richard March 04:02
08 Poison to the Mind Graham Crabb 00:57
09 Def. Con. One Clint Mansell 03:59
10 Radio P.W.E.I. Graham Crabb 03:37
11 Shortwave Transmission on "Up to the Minuteman Nine" Clint Mansell 01:02
12 Satellite Ecstatica Graham Crabb; Richard March 03:33
13 Not Now James, We're Busy... Graham Crabb; Richard March 03:08
14 Wake Up! Time to Die... Graham Crabb 06:41
15 She Loves Me...She Loves Me Not Adam Mole; Clint Mansell; Graham Crabb; Richard March 05:42
Music Details
Product Details
Packaging Jewel Case
Spars DDD
Sound Stereo
Musicians  &  Credits
Vocals Clint Mansell
Vocals Graham Crabb
Guitar Adam Mole
Guitar Richard March
Turntable DJ Winston
Musician Pop Will Eat Itself
Producer Mark "Flood" Ellis; Robin Goodfellow
Engineer Dave Pine; Robin Goodfellow
Personal Details
Index # 2623
Owner Dave
Tags Alternative Rock, Breakbeat, Synth Pop
User Defined
Purchased New
Notes
After the band's enthusiastic if somewhat stumbling transformation into a sort-of English Beastie Boys on Box Frenzy, Pop Will Eat Itself transformed itself into a much superior beast on the brilliant, underrated This Is the Day...This Is the Hour...This Is This! The secret ingredient was Flood, who brought his considerable production skills to the fore and helped shape an album that was its own sprawling but self-contained universe. While calling the bandmembers skilled MCs in a conventional sense would be pretty silly, their own particular mesh and mix of U.S. and, importantly, U.K. pop culture in with the metal riffs, disco backing, monster drum stomps, and more are their own reward. The band's sound has never been thicker and more detailed, and while the sampling and arranging are always clearly a product of their late-'80s times, like the Beasties did that year with Paul's Boutique, PWEI comes up with its own sharp synthesis. The brilliant, shuddering singles alone are worth the price of entry -- "Def. Con. One," a ridiculously goony but very catchy portrayal of Armageddon Judge Dredd style, the propulsive "Can U Dig It?" and its cataloging of everything the band loves from DJ Spinderella to Dirty Harry, and particularly the wonderful "Wise Up! Sucker," as perfect a frustrated love/hate song of the era as anything else, with a sharp, mocking backing vocal from the Wonder Stuff's Miles Hunt. Then there's the wickedly bizarre "Not Now James, We're Busy...," a sort of anti-tribute to the Godfather of Soul and his legal troubles of the time. But beyond those deserved highlights, there are all sorts of intriguing surprises throughout the album, including a fair dollop of moody goth/post-punk touches that inadvertently predicts where Massive Attack partially ended up. The murky beginning and breaks of "Inject Me" and the collapsing inward drones and feedback of "Wake Up! Time to Die..." certainly give the lie to the idea that PWEI was only ever a one-dimensional cartoon. -- Ned Raggett (allmusic.com)