Consumer Guide Album

New Model Army: No Rest for the Wicked [Capitol, 1985]
The State Department says they can't tour the U.S.--"no artistic merit." You can understand why they think this reflects on their politics, which are in the old English tradition of left chauvinism--they hate consumer blandishments with a passion that springs not from their readings in Hans Magnus Enzensberger but from a natural militance that deplores softness in class allies. Such an ideology would exclude artistic merit in the minds of most bureaucrats (as indeed would many other ideologies, not to mention the presence of electric guitars), and that's abhorrent. I'd be hard-pressed to argue compelling positive distinction on an often plodding football-punk sort of album, its words sharper in tone and spirit than content. But I'd give it a try. B