Yeovil, UK · anarcho-punk · post-punk

The Mob

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Haunted, minimal anarcho-punk that traded rage for genuine melancholy — 'Let the Tribe Increase' still casts a long shadow.

The Mob formed in Yeovil, Somerset in the late 1970s with singer and guitarist Mark Wilson, bassist Curtis Youé and drummer Graham Fallows; later drummers included Adie Tompkins, Tim Hutton and Joseph Porter. From 1978 the band also produced a fanzine called All the Madmen, taking its name from a David Bowie track on The Man Who Sold the World.

Their first two singles, "Crying Again" and "Witch Hunt", came out in 1980 on the band's own All the Madmen Records. Wilson and Youé moved to London in 1981, where the group became part of the anarcho-punk network built up around Crass; a third single, "No Doves Fly Here", followed on Crass Records in 1982.

The Mob's sound was slower and starker than most of their peers, built from echo-heavy guitar, tribal drumming and a sense of dread closer to post-punk than hardcore. Let the Tribe Increase, their only album, appeared on All the Madmen in 1983; its profits went back into the label, run jointly with people from the Kill Your Pet Puppy fanzine collective. The band split later that year.

The original lineup reformed in 2011 after Wilson learned that a tribute band had been booked to play a surprise party for his birthday and decided to perform himself. The reunited group played its first show at The Fleece in Bristol, released the single "Rise Up!" in 2013, and toured Britain, Europe and North America over the following years.

Crass's Penny Rimbaud later called "No Doves Fly Here" one of the most beautiful singles of the punk era, and a retrospective in The Quietus described it as close to a magnum opus for the anarcho-punk genre.

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anarcho-punkpost-punk