Rock Art & X-Ray Style
TheClashmade their splash playing raucous punk rock earmarked by a twin chainsaw guitar attack and Joe Strummer's strained vocal barks, so it's easy to forget that they could create some lovely music. SeeSandinista!'s "Rebel Waltz" and "Charlie Don't Surf,"London Calling's "Death or Glory," andCombat Rock's "Straight to Hell." The boy who used to scream "White Riot!" realized there are other ways to be heard than shouting fire in a crowded theater, and there is no denying that the Clash wanted to be heard. It's a lesson Joe Strummer has carried on as he's gone from angry young man to wizened elder, and with his new album,Rock Art and the X-Ray Style, and new band, the Mescaleros, he trades in the snip and snarl of punk for a loose yet powerful amalgam of blues, country, and reggae grooves. It provides a perfect canvas for Strummer's still potent messages of social insight and political critique, painted with his warm but ravaged vocal chords. Aside from the misstep of the second track, "Sandpaper Blues,"Rock Artbristles with outstanding songs. On "Tony Adams," Strummer rants atop a rocking reggae shuffle, "I am waiting for the rays of the morning sun / Somebody tell me clearly--has the New World begun?" On "Techno D-Day" (as close to a Clash City Rocker as you'll find these days) he reinvigorates rock with a revolutionary agenda. The album's best cut, however, is the lovely closer, "Willesden to Cricklewood," a wonderful, wispy tune that finds Strummer waxing poetic on an afternoon whiled away with friends and family in a small town. It's a far cry from the apocalyptic vision in the Clash's "London's Burning," but no less powerful.--Tod Nelson