“Somebody’s gotta get the message through.

To have a word and put a sledgehammer through you.”

It was the late 1980’s and dance music was dangerous. Acid House was front page tabloid news, and ecstasy was causing moral panic across Britain. For the first time, hip-hop was crossing over to alternative white kids, and there was no established precedent to stop the rampant sampling that would cross-pollinate urban music with punk rock and industrial. Something revolutionary was happening.

“Dance music,” says Graham Crabb, “had changed from largely an escapist form of music to something socially relevant.”

Graham Crabb and Adam Mole know a little something about that salient musical and sociopolitical journey. As one-half of industrial dance icons Pop Will Eat Itself—along with Clint Mansell, Richard March and drummer Fuzz Townshend—Crabb and Mole spread a blistering, transformative gospel of noise, rock, dance and art influenced by everyone from Public Enemy to the UK’s Wasted Youth. Now, 20 years after PWEI lit the fuses, Crabb and Mole are back to finish the job as VILE EVILS.

“Acid House was a communal voice in the same way that punk rock was, and those are the elements that we have in our music that gives us the edge,” says Crabb. “Club music nowadays, that corporate stuff, sounds very bland. It’s not the era we came from. It’s not what we want to do.”

PWEI briefly reformed back in 2005 to play a handful of shows around the UK, and later released a ten-minute teaser of unfinished tracks (Sonic Noise-Byte) to members of the band’s PWEI Nation fan site. After Mansell and March bowed out of any future recording plans, temporarily halting a full-stop comeback, Crabb and Mole decided to soldier on, polishing off a few of the Sonic Noise-Byte tunes and drafting a fresh set of plans for the newest jilted generation; one tempered by the fires of political extremism, financial uncertainty and world war.

“These are the days when protest music starts to make an impact again,” says Crabb. who took the VILE EVILS name from a lyric in Vic Godard and Subway Sect’s seminal punk song, “Ambition.” “People are looking for more because the status quo won’t satisfy them.”

Vive Le Vileevil, set to be released on March 16 through dPulse Recordings, is a brash, hard-nosed collection of songs that flexes a new and energized writing dynamic between Crabb and Mole. Though the sound draws on the tried and true grit of the Poppies’ proto-industrial palette, the group is far removed from the days of sample-heavy Atari programming. These tunes are supercharged with bristling guitars, rave-inflected synths, thick bass, hybridized drums, and distorted vocal missives that blare from the speaker cabinets like battalion commands.
The first single, a spiraling, double-time burner called “Demon,” features production and vocals from none other than Clint Mansell.

“The original idea began back in 1996 as an instrumental work that had a sampled vocal designed to capture the vibe of a fairground barker amping the adrenalin thrill of a carnival ride,” Mansell remembers. “The original music, though, didn’t quite hit the heights and the idea was shelved. It needed time. Fast forward to now. It’s a new tune of ruff thuggery with an orchestral progression and a Warp-style bleep and booster riff. An idea of what might have been? Maybe. But more importantly, an example of what is.”

“Demon” is just one of a number of virulent testaments scorched into the 12-track album. From the first traces of wormhole bass and blaring synth stabs on the opening track, VILE EVILS made their intentions known. “’Round here the kids they bang and bite they’re just a little bit crazy,” sings Crabb on “Fucking And Fighting,” a sure-to-be squatter’s anthem. “Oldskoolcool,” a drum ‘n’ bass rinser with guitars by Leif Kahal and vocals from Mary Byker (Gaye Bykers On Acid), is a tribute to the halcyon days at the expense of all neophytes, while “No Fear” sounds like a goodnatured dust up between Justice, Plump DJs and Kool and the Gang. Elsewhere, Mighty K’s Maggie K de Monde sings the hook on “Street Riotin’,” another incendiary treatise.

“Lyrically I’m probably obsessed with social unrest,” says Crabb of the tune. “How it comes about and how it’s almost inevitable.”

If you were one of the lucky ones who downloaded Sonic Noise-Byte, the back-to-back sequence of “Nosebleeder Turbo TV” and “Retro Dreaming” should jog your memory, while another familiar sound, longtime PWEI drummer (and third Evil) Fuzz Townshend, bashes his way through “Wasted.” Vive Le Vileevil closes with the slow, eerily out of tune “Wasted” (Reprise), with Crabb providing the album’s mysterious coda: “Dust my coat and shake my hat. You’ll know where I’m at.”

Trainspotters take note. There’s a reason the album cover looks familiar. To bring the project around full circle, VILE EVILS enlisted the services of the Designer’s Republic to execute the artwork.

“It’s great to be working with them again on the artwork,” says Crabb. “It’s fitting that PWEI and TDR took off at the same time, and are both setting about reestablishing themselves again. For us, the artwork is as bold and striking as the music, so we go hand in hand to the Disco Inferno 2010.”

Plans are already in the works for a small UK tour, and with 2011 ringing in the 25th anniversary of PWEI, who knows what the future holds. One thing is certain. There’ll be no slowing down for these two.

“It’s important that we don’t sound like we’ve mellowed with age,” says Mole. “I like bands reforming, but if their sound has moved on too much, that doesn’t appeal to me. We want to keep that attitude and excitement of when we were first into punk rock. We don’t want to sound like, ‘Right, I’m ready for my pipe and slippers.’ We want to push the barrier.”

All singles are available through itunes search "Vile Evils".

The debut album "Vive Le Vileevil" is to be released 16/03/10.

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