Reviewed by Ian Phillips.
By New Model Army, earMUSIC 2019.
Apparently New Model Army, who hail from Bradford, have been around for 40 years but this album is the first I’ve heard of them.
On a first listen to the opening track, Passing Through, I’m wondering how I missed them!
Front man and songwriter Justin Sullivan has a fantastic gravelly baritone voice and the track is a massively powerful opening statement to the album.
Just as important is the fact that this band want to create albums that set out to explore a theme and they are determined to tackle some of the big questions confronting the world head on.
In pursuing this musical and philosophical direction they are largely flying in the face of the modern trend of albums being a collection of unrelated, and in many cases already released, singles.
The band’s comment is: “It is often said that the album is dead. We don’t believe this is true.”
In many ways the band are old school.
They still sincerely believe in the power of music to inspire and effect change on a personal and political scale.
Somehow they’ve lasted this long without succumbing to the cynicism that age and experience often engenders, and all power to their bow.
The songs on From Here were recorded on the tiny Norwegian island of Giske at the beautiful Ocean Sound Recordings Studio and the songs reflect the spectacular scenery and the isolation of that environment.
There’s a power that underlies the album.
The sound is as big as their creative vision and landscape.
The songs are about what is happening in the world, and the band members responses to the bleak, open, cold and rugged landscape surrounding them is reflected in the music.
There’s a sense of uneasiness that pervades the album and profound messages and warnings in the lyrics.
Songs like End Of Days, Passing Through and Never Arriving question where we are heading and explicitly challenge us to analyse our own role in the malaise that we’re sinking into.
I rate this album as one of the best that I’ve heard this year.
