Consumer Guide Album

War: Greatest Hits [United Artists, 1976]
This band lives up to its name. The powerful, deceptively torpid groove evokes the pace of inner-city pleasures like "All Day Music" and "Summer." But however jokey and off-the-cuff they sound, they're usually singing about conflict, often racial conflict--the real subject of "The Cisco Kid" and "Why Can't We Be Friends?," which many take for novelty songs. A-