 "Their least focused record but it's still decent (3.5 stars)" | 2008-08-24 |
| - Reviewed By bigbangboom |
| While Combat Rock would give the Clash the band its greatest success, it is also the most inconsistent release that the original lineup recorded. Having said that, it's still a decent album. It is best known for their two most popular songs, "Rock the Casbah" and "Should I Stay or Should I Go." These songs were all over the radio in 1982-1983 and you still hear them quite often. Those tunes are the heart of the album's first side where everything works. The excellent "Know Your Rights" finds the band recalling the focused anger of their debut while "Car Jamming" is just as strong both lyrically and musically with its tribal beat. "Red Angel Dragnet" is another great tune sung by bassist Paul Simonon and led by his funky bass line. "Straight to Hell" finds Joe Strummer perhaps at his most politically aware as he addresses racism, abandonment, and the possibility of an unrealized American dream over its reggae beat. From here, the album is very hit and miss with the best tunes being the jazzy and somber "Sean Flynn" and one of their best reggae tunes, "Ghetto Defendant". The track "Inoculated City" is also pretty catchy. The remaining tracks aren't up to par as "Overpowered by Funk" is too simple and too long while "Atom Tan" and "Death is a Star" just don't work with the latter sounding like an attempt to replicate the Specials' moodier work. All told, while Combat Rock is their least satisfying album, it's still worth hearing and this is the only place where you'll find the songs "Car Jamming" and "Sean Flynn". |
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 "Actually a pretty strong album despite the turmoil engulfing the band" | 2008-07-20 |
| - Reviewed By dmitrimahubbard |
I approach this album from a different perspective than some other reviewers. There are two great ponderous Joe Strummer numbers (Straight to Hell, Ghetto Defendant - featuring poetry from Allen Ginsberg) two instant hits, one by Mick Jones, the instantly catchy Should I Stay or Should I Go, and the darker, more powerful Joe Strummer number, Rock the Casbah (or as we used to sing in the 80s, 'fk the taskforce'). Car Jamming is another rockability number.
'Know your rights' is full of attitude and anger. Songs like 'Overpowered by funk' are still solid, even if they show disco influence. The last song "Death is a Star" has an almost cabaret feel to it, and is fittingly the endpoint for a great band.
This album was much criticised as being soulless. I think it is simply diverse. It has elements of Mick Jones, Joe Strummer, and some experimentation. This should have been the end point. Do not buy Cut the Crap but get a compilation which has 'This is England' on it. |
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 "Good but not great Clash" | 2008-05-24 |
| - Reviewed By User: AQQLWCMRNDFGI |
This has flashes of Clash greatness, but it is nowhere near as great as, for instance, "London Calling" or as audacious as "Sandinista." Nonetheless, it is still a CD well worth listening to, as we see the Clash winding down as a creative force.
Given comments by some reviewers, I am almost embarrassed to say that two songs really do stand out--a softer song, "Should I Stay or Should I Go" and the funky "Rock the Casbah." The first was a hit, and seems like a bookend for the wonderful "Train in Vain." The latter had an infectious beat and some amusing lines.
Still, there are also other songs worth some note. "Overpowered by Funk" is an interesting change of pace; "Straight to Hell" is another good piece.
This marked the decline of the Clash, as Mick Jones and Joe Strummer were going their separate ways, with differing visions of the direction the Clash should take. But it was not a bad album. No, it was not "London Calling," but very few CDs are at that level.
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| "At least they tried to do something different" | 2008-04-07 |
| - Reviewed By nda0093 |
| unfortunatley the entire B-side of this album was an unlistenable waste. The A side is good. In this digital age I suppose that means the first half of the CD is good. Songs like "Rock the Casbah" etc. "Death is a Star" and "Ghetto Defendant" are real boring. I kept at it though when I first got this album way back when, figuring that it just might take some time to grow on me like "London Calling" did. Too bad it never did. but hey! The Clash always strove to be different, and sometimes you're on, and sometimes you're not. The Clash were more often hit the target. |
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| "Bloody Aweful (well most of it anyway)" | 2008-01-03 |
| - Reviewed By User: A3P949MA9RISRL |
| This album marked the downfall of the Clash. Topper was kicked out shortly after its release and Mick Jones left a year later leaving only Paul Simonon and Joe Strummer. Anyway there are only a handful of good songs here: "Know Your Rights", "Should I Stay or Should I Go", "Rock the Casbah", and even "Car Jamming" and "Red Angel Dragnet". The rest is bloody aweful. The only Clash album that's worse is Cut the Crap (notice the word "Crap"). |
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| "A tragic album, because they're should have been much more..." | 2007-09-11 |
| - Reviewed By User: A2UYAFQ40U2PHS |
| This is actually a very good, consistent record, and it ended up being The Clash's swansong. It's really a shame, because The Clash were becoming one of the biggest bands of the 80's at this point, and it's sad that they never made another album after this (Cut the Crap doesn't count). I've always really liked this one. I love the song Car Jamming, Rock the Casbah, and I love Ghetto Defendant, with lyrics and vocals by none other than Allen Ginsburg, one of my favorite poets. And the 2 hits, Rock the Casbah and Should I Stay or Should I Go? are really great tunes. Straight to Hell is creepy and eerie too. By the time this album came out, Jones and Strummer hated each other, and Topper was totally strung out on heroin (Topper was kicked out of the band because of this, the story of "political differences" was BS). It's a bloody shame, and there will never be a reunion now, since Joe has passed on. So enjoy the last album by the original Clash. |
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| "Combat Rock" | 2007-08-31 |
| - Reviewed By mortonsguitar |
The Clash-Combat Rock ***1/2
Combat Rock plays out like a condenced version of Sandinista! The only difference is that instead of focusing on the third world countries it features on America. Joe Strummer conveys some of his gretest poetry and lyrics on Combat Rock as well as some of his most creative. Mick Jones is also incredibly creative on this album, his guitar doesnt seem as occurant as normal but almost every sound on the album is from his guitar as at this time he was experimenting highly with effects pedals. The band as a whole sounds great together which is amazing when concedering all of the inner termoul that was occuring at the time.
'Should I Stay Or Should I Go' bacame the bands biggest radio hit and really their only radio hit. 'Rock The Casbah' was a cult hit when first released but over time has become a monsterous sucess, and is also one of the best songs the band ever recorded honestly.The album opens with 'Know Your Rights' which begins "This is a public service announcement, with guitars!" It is just ashame the the best song on the album came as the album started which left it nowhere to go from there. The slow jams on the album are better sometimes then others, and the overuse of spoken word can get dull for the regular listener, but for those who are really taking in what strummer is saying it comes across as almost a poerty slam thru your speakers. The dub on this album is several steps above that of the dub used on Sandinista!
As a whole the energy and message that The Clash bring to Combat Rock is something that all fans can enjoy. Now while this is not one of the bands better acheivements this is a solid album full of great songs in which everyone will find something to enjoy. After Combat Rock Strummer made the biggest mistake of his career and maybe of his life and fired Mick Jones from The Clash. After this Strummer followed this up with Cut The Crap which was basicaly a solo Strummer album with the Clash name on it. I dont mention the other members of the group on this album because the two of them had very little to do with the music at this point, Strummer was basicaly controling everything but Jones which is why he was later fired, and besides the other two were strung out on herion and just basicaly lost motive for the music at this point. Combat Rock is the last great Clash album and really one of the more important and better rock albums from the 1980's. So add it to your collection. |
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| "Profundity and prescience" | 2007-07-30 |
| - Reviewed By kelleypb |
I recall being somewhat disappointed in this album when it came out it 1982. After all, I was 15 and had been left reeling from the unfathomably lengthy and musically diverse Sandinista. Unrealistically, I longed for some sort of return to the pithiness of London Calling. In fact, this album does return to the immediacy of their earlier sound, but with certain innovations reflecting their increasing musical maturity and lyrical savvy.
First, the lyrics build on the depth of Sandinista's political engagement. The profundity of Joe Strummer's singing in "Ghetto Defendant" is simply not to be believed, and Allen Ginsburg's poetry complements the lyrics perfectly. Other musical innovations include the subtle, yet moving synthesizer in "Sean Flynn" (compare this wonderful synthesizer sound to the rubbish to follow throughout the rest of the 80s and you get downright depressed), Topper Headon's increasingly complex use of percussion (before he became a victim of "heroin pity"), and Mick Jone's piano. Even "Rock the Casbah," long derided as overly dance-influenced, reveals itself as predicting the North African rock- and reggae-inspired movement known as "rai"--an Arabic word meaning opinion, and whose importance the internationally-savvy Joe Strummer was certainly aware of. Was not the persecution suffered by many practitioners of this music--Cheb Hasni, murdered in 1994 by Algerian religious extremists, Khaled, forced to expatriation in Paris--foreseen by lyrics such as "By order of the prophet / We ban that boogie sound / Degenerate the faithful /With that crazy casbah sound"? Perhaps it is in the last track, "Death is a star," that we realize the true greatness and musical genius of The Clash, with Joe and Mick singing in their trademark unison to the fading sounds of an improvised piano...
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| "Not their best but still pretty good" | 2007-04-12 |
| - Reviewed By User: A2CQ7A9PEY2X3J |
I first listened to this album in 1989 and I'm pleased they reissued it. Naturally, I can't tell the difference between the remastered edition and the original because I haven't heard the latter since 1992.
Elsehow, I think "Red Angel Dragnet" and "Car Jamming" are both good enough to be on every Clash best-of album. So where they hell are they?
Check this album out. |
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| "A little bit unfocused" | 2007-03-25 |
| - Reviewed By lifeofcandlelight |
So, there are three Clash albums that I own, and of the three, I find that "Combat Rock" is the weakest of those. However, The Clash and London Calling are incredible albums. The former is a straight-up punk assault done brilliantly, and the latter is their experimentation pretty much all gone right. The band's fifth album was where the band members started being more conflicted, and this may not be too surprising when listening to this album.
There are of course some definite highlights. Everyone knows the classics "Should I Stay or Should I Go?" and the even better "Rock the Casbah." These tracks are some of the most catchy on the album and have riffs that will be stuck in your head for awhile. There are a couple of other songs worthy of listening to on the record. "Know Your Rights" couldn't have possibly have been a better opener. With the opening lyrics of "This is a public service announcement/with guitars," it sounds like a beginning track of an album, and is a moving listen. The track has the band's political views and with some sarcasm and wit. Then there's the awesome funk of "Overpowered by Funk." I think if someone enjoyed Mick Jones' future project, Big Audio Dynamite, this album might actually be a pretty good introduction.
The rest? It's a bit interesting, but not anything special. There is spoken poetry and attempts at being over the map musically once again, only this time they don't sound as into the experiments as they once were. That kind of makes it disappointing. That being said, "Combat Rock" isn't too bad of an album, and the weaker portion is actually kind of forgettable by comparison to the stronger.
The album is not bad, and it's quite cheap actually, so it wouldn't be bad to try looking out for this one, even if I don't recommend it as your first step into the Clash's backcatalogue. It may be easier to listen to in snippets than in full, actually. |
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