New Model Army - Vengeance The Independent Story - Compact Disc

Song List
1. Bittersweet
2. Betcha
3. Tension
4. Great Expectations
5. Waiting
6. Christian Militia
7. Notice Me
8. Smalltown England
9. Liberal Education, A
10. Vengeance
11. Sex (The Black Angel)
12. Running In The Rain
13. Spirit Of The Falklands
14. Price, The
15. 1984
16. No Man's Land
17. Great Expectations (The Peel Session)
18. Notice Me (The Peel Session)


To their impassioned cult of fans, New Model Army was one of the best post-punk outfits Great Britain ever produced. Combining the gut-level force of punk with the anthemic political fervor of U2 and The Alarm, as well as the urban protest folk of Billy Bragg, NMA sounded like few other bands mining similar post-punk territory. Their attack was hard, spare, and precise, but as time wore on, they were just as likely to deliver modern-day folk-rock replete with acoustic guitar, violin, and harmonica. Throughout their career, they remained staunch advocates of the British working class, occasionally tempering their leftist, anti-Thatcher political fury with moments of personal introspection. Their shout-along anthems often borrowed the football-chant feel of Oi! punk, but NMA was far less given to rabble-rousing, instead aiming for intelligent dissidence. True, that could sometimes translate into preachy sloganeering, but NMA's best work earned them tremendous acclaim in the U.K., where their singles regularly placed in the lower reaches of the pop charts. U.K.-specific lyrical references, coupled with visa problems that sometimes made touring difficult, unfortunately ensured that they were all but ignored in the U.S. Still, they maintained a strong following in Europe, and leader Justin Sullivan managed to keep them going for more than two decades.