A pale, lipsticked Matty Healy is shrieking into a microphone with a bad case of the Mondays. It may take you a minute to place, but scraping your attention away from your emails is The 1975, a soft 80’s inspired pop group turned riotous glam-punk reveller overnight. Delivering this fistful of sneering glitter is new release People, a brash call to action and scornful self-reflective chant.

People disparages consumerist culture, filling in a paint-by-number portrait of an apathetic society. Healy’s account of disaffected youth comfortable watching the world burn on YouTube with a delivered meal in hand feels just a little on the nose. Of course, with the world on fire, where else is there to go? The track manages to hold attention long enough to convey the message, executing a long-perfected formula in punk subversion pretty convincingly for a group fresh off synth rock ballads.

            Well, my generation wanna — Barack Obama

            Living in a sauna with legal marijuana

            I don’t like going outside, so bring me everything here

Upcoming album Notes On A Conditional Form is set for release in 2020, leaving the band to tour- and put their money where their mouth is. Recently announcing his support of Planned Parenthood, Healy joins 130 other musical artists in a protest along with Billie Eilish, Nine Inch Nails, and Vic Mensa. The protest hopes to educate and to motivate youth, and aims to stem a recent tide of restrictive reproductive health laws in the US by obtaining half a million signatures in an online petition. If activism isn’t your thing, People is worth a watch for the punk rock tropes alone. Is Matty wearing Marilyn Manson’s hair?