Artists who insist on broadcasting their political views through the medium of their music have rarely passed into history leaving much more than a lukewarm legacy. In today’s world of newspapers, blogging and overly opinionated Politics students, the last thing the average listener wants to hear from their pop music is artists shoving further ideologies in their faces.

At face value, Gang of Four seem custom built to fall into this category of slightly annoying, self important artists who insist that their music will change the world. They are after all, a band renowned for their socialist views, created by a group of Leeds art students who are named after the group of Maoists who effectively ran China until the death of their leader in 1976. It comes as something of a surprise, then, that 30 years on from its original release, Entertainment! is still more than fresh enough to be worthy of another visit.

Renowned for their anti-capitalist views and Marxist sympathies, Gang of Four are a band with plenty to complain about throughout. ·Issues with modern consumer society on Natural's Not In It ("The problem with leisure/What to do with pleasure") and ·hypocritical politicians on I Found That Essence Rare ("The last thing they’ll ever do?/Act in your interest") are just two examples of many.

Entertainment's power is maintained today through it's ability to not sound as outdated as would as perhaps seem inevitable. Whilst this is a record constructed specifically within the context of 1970s Britain, it's observations on modern consumer culture means it possesses content which continues to ring true today.

Neither is this a band annoyingly insistent that their music has the ability, or the duty, to change the system. It is an album of angst and observation, not one that is naively insistent on its ability to bring about change. In fact, as is demonstrated on Not Great Men, they acknowledge that any chance of a realisation of their Marxist ideals has long been confined to history, conceding that "the poor still weak the rich still rule/History lives in the books at home...It’s not made by great men."

Political messages aside, the content of ·this record also manages to hold a refreshing potency in an era of music defined by worn out themes of romance and heartbreak. Here Gang of Four are eager to challenge such conventional topics, such as on closing track Anthrax, which features a restless Jon King warning over a chugging rhythm section and growling distorted guitar riffs that "love’ll get you like a case of anthrax/And that’s something I don’t want to catch". It is, as King described it, the ultimate ‘post-punk anti-love song’.

This is an album of superb musicianship, principally defined by Andy Gill‘s restlessly raw guitar riffs which are relentlessly exciting throughout. Dave Allen’s bass consistently reflects his band’s admiration of dub styles and combines with Hugo Burham’s intricate drumming to create an impressively funky and inventive rhythm section.

This is post-punk at its most stripped down, and the band sound fantastic for it. It is proof, if any was needed, that quality music is not dependent on the amount of hours spent tweaking original recordings in a studio. They are a band which sound like they have just picked up a guitar and a bass and some drum sticks and just set out to make some gutsy post-punk. It is a formula that a lot of today’s over-produced maintstream rockers could do a lot worse than to replicate.

Stand-out anti-consumerist track Natural’s Not In It can now be heard soundtracking the latest advert for the Xbox Kinect. Disappointingly ironic, yes, and combined with a succession of underwhelming, self-important follow-up records, it sometimes feels as though the band are doing all they can to sell out and undermine the startling power of their first release.

However, this is an album made of stern stuff, and will inevitably go down as the band's defining legacy. A combination of controlled anger and impeccably raw musicianship, ·this is a record which continues to sound as fresh as the day it was released, epitomising the punk ideal whilst maintaining an exhilerating focus on the production of some snarling rock. Well and truly a 'they don’t make ‘em like they used to' situation.