For How Much Longer Do We Tolerate Mass Murder

Background and music

For How Much Longer Do We Tolerate Mass Murder? was recorded at Foel Studios. It featured a collaboration with proto-rap group The Last Poets. The photo on the cover is the famous photograph Two Gypsies by André Kertész.

Mark Fisher described the album's mix of "murky funk, free jazz squalls, dub diffraction, howls and shrieks" as "the sound of a society falling apart."

Reception

Upon its release in 1980, For How Much Longer received mixed reviews, with publications at the center of post-punk discourse (such as the NME) dismissing its agit-prop didacticism in favor of the fevered mysticism of the group's debut album, Y.

In recent years, however, writers have lauded the album's musical and political radicalism, with Mark Fisher writing for Fact that "the debates provoked by For How Much Longer rehearsed some of the disputes over aesthetics and politics that had exercised revolutionaries throughout the twentieth century. Was the message the most important thing, or was it formal innovation that made artworks revolutionary? The remarkable thing about For How Much Longer is that it refuses to choose. In 2016, Record Collector described the album as "highly relevant" and "frighteningly prescient," stating that "the post-punk Bristolian radicals did actually succeed in synthesising something fierce, funky and fantastic from their unholy mash-up of Ornette Coleman, Funkadelic and heavyweight, Channel One-style dub.

Track listing

All tracks written by The Pop Group.

Personnel

Adapted from the For How Much Longer Do We Tolerate Mass Murder? liner notes.