New Model Army - my new favorite band! (literally based on the first 29 min of them I've ever heard)

The EMI years!

 

The new album 'From here" has really echoes of Justin Sullivan's "Navigating by the stars" and "Between dog and wolf":

many long, atmospheric tracks, almost like a movie soundtrack at times, impressive tribal drumming...and as usual with Justin Sullivan, fine, touching lyrics.

Best tracks for the moment, in my opinion:

"Never arriving", "Conversation", "End of days", "From here", "Setting sun".

It's great to see that Justin Sullivan still "has it" even at his "old" age! I can't wait for the next gig in France and especially the 40th birthday gigs next year!

 

Loved them in the late 80's early 90's, their masterpiece is Thunder and Consolation

 

Gotta thank the OP for reigniting my interest in NMA! I've now ordered the entire catalog from various sources and it's arriving at the rate of one or two albums every few days. The more recent albums are turning out to be some of my favorite releases. The two latest albums are both real growers. The only release that has bummed me out so far has been The Love of Hopeless Causes. Maybe I'll come round to that one with a few more listens, but for such a unique band it sounded very generic 90s rock.

By the way, I liked the documentary. Of course it's annoying that a large chunk of their career was skipped over, but that always the problem with music docs that cover a long career. I don't know how you talk about every era of their career and make it a compelling story. A little more of a nod to the post-major-label years would have been appreciated though. I hope this eventually hits the streaming services. That might win them a few more fans.

Does anyone know if there's ever been an NMA book? If not, I'll have to be content with tracking down old interviews and articles on the net.

 

Oh, one more question. I've really been enjoying Lost Songs a lot, and each disc plays fine in my CD player, but every time I try to rip it on my computer it ends up as unintelligible, distorted noise. Anybody else have this problem? This is the only CD I've had this problem with. I keep changing the setting, but still no luck.

 

I only know of this one.... New Model Army - 30th Anniversary Boxset but you'll have to track down the Box!

I keep repeating myself on Strange Brotherhood! Try making a 2 CD set using the first 9 songs on CD1 and the rest on CD 2, then add these to CD 2 (using Lost Songs). I don't know why it just feels better with two short CD's rather than one long one. I'd be intrigued to see if you feel the same way

Third record from fan club edition
Side one

1. "Brother" (Sullivan)
2. "Southwest" (Sullivan)
3. "Rainy Night 65" (Sullivan, Heaton)

Side two

1. "Refugee" (Sullivan, Heaton)
2. "Sunset" (Sullivan, Heaton)
3. "Caslen" (Nelson)
4. "See You in Hell" (Sullivan, Heaton)

The only difference from the 3lp set is that Lost Songs has lyrics on Caslen

 

Grunge rock style, this album? I agree that it's probably a bit more generic than the albums before it but don't you like songs like "Here comes the war", "Fate", "White light", "Bad old world", "Living in the rose" or "These words"? Fine album in my opinion and one from this band i really enjoy to listen to, these last years!

About the book i can be wrong but unfortunately i don't think there's a book about this band...i would love to, though!
You can still find interesting Justin Sullivan interviews in the US magazine "The Big Takeover", especially the ones published in summer 1993 for the release and the US tour of "The Love of Hopeless causes", and the other one published in 2003 for the release of JS's solo album "Navigating by the stars"...pretty long, interesting JS interviews in these two issues of The Big Takeover.

I hope that i'm not the only one on this forum who rather liked the new album "From here"!

 

I'm only familiar with New Model Army from the song, "The Hunt", covered by Sepultura from their Chaos AD album. I'm going to hunt down (very punny hur hur hur) for some New Model Army LPs based on this thread. Many cheers to those who contribute to this thread.

 

I remember them being copy protected, at least the reissues. I wonder if that has anything to do with it? I have the 2 CD sets of four of the albums, which I guess are pretty rare now.

 

I missed the point of the original post. EMI used copy protection so some of their re releases may have this. From Strange Brotherhood NMA are "self" released on the attack attack label from memory. None of the independent albums should have copy protection on any re release and I don't think the Sony album did either! It's easy to know as they were forced to label all copy protected discs as they did not confirm to the CD standard and did not play in all CD players (they don't or at least shouldn't have the CD logo below so if your packaging has this logo anywhere it should not have copy control). I do not know why the OP's particular CD doesn't copy as mine does with no issues!

 

Justin Sullivan playing "Sun on water" live, last week...beautiful!:

 

I was just thinking what a double bill that NMA and TV Smith would make. The stuff of dreams.

 

A question about the fans - first saw NMA at The Longest Day festival about 20 years ago and was intrigued watching the fans doing a specific kind of dance - all twisting arms etc and aloft on their mates shoulders - anyone know the origins of this particular dance style - it's very expressive

 

I am really enjoying their latest lp. If you like NMA then you will really enjoy this one.

 

"Where I Am" is a great song and ought to be a single. Would be great on the radio if that were possible.

 

It's one of the few songs that leave me cold on the new album...a bit like "Great disguise", not bad songs at all but a bit dull/generic in my opinion.
"Conversation" and "Never arriving" are great NMA tracks though, and the closer "From here" has grown on me, powerful music and lyrics there!

 

Since no one else seems to have an explanation..I'll try..I've been a huge fan of NMA since the early eighties..and continue to be a fan.

You might appreciate that this is a rather difficult question to answer, the following is my own interpretation.

You have to go back to the first album 'Vengeance', listen to the way that the bass guitar works within the drum patterns, they literally twist and turn with each other, personally I've never heard another 'rock' band that combines bass and drums this well.

So, if you think about those bass guitar and drum rhythms and think about how you might dance..or move..whatever you want to call it, you'd probably break your legs if you tried to keep up with the pace..or just crumble into a heap after one song.

The only natural and expressive way is to raise your arms and twist and turn with the beats..especially in a live setting where you might really want to express yourself with more than just shuffling your feet.

The human towers were just another way of expressing yourself..and some might say showing off..not my opinion as it goes.

I've seen NMA a good number of times, the last gig being October of last year and still the human towers go up, arms twisting and turning, even to some of the more sedate and slower songs, but I'm always impressed by the audience somewhat 'including' themselves in the whole performance.

That's my take on your question, I'd be happy for any other opinions, especially from those who were early instigators.

As for me..too scared to go up top of a human tower and arms too slow to keep up..respect

 

I much prefer the band Romeo Void who have some of the same production sound.

 

Thanks for the reply - an interesting view of it. The Mission and Fields of the Nephilim were also gigs where you'd see the human towers, though only NMA had those unique 'dance moves

 

Updating in case anyone else ends up having the same problem. After trying to rip the CD with multiple ripping software, on multiple computers, using multiple CD drives, all achieving the same unsatisfactory result, I finally found a workaround. I'm on a Mac and I ended up just dragging the files from the CD to my desktop and everything sounds great. Go figure.

 

I didn't mean grunge really, but that kind of post-grunge mainstream rock that dominated the airwaves (in the U.S. at least) in the mid and late 90s. Since my first comment though, I've listened to the album some more and there are indeed some really good songs on it. I think it's just that the instrumentation is kind of boring on some of the songs compared to what else I knew of the band. I'd still say that it ranks at the bottom of NMA albums for me, but I gonna keep listening and hopefully it will grow on me some more.

 

If I’m honest, this is the album I play least but the two singles and five b sides are all great!

 

On Friday I received Carnival and Strange Brotherhood in the mail, and with that I've finally got all the studio albums and b-sides collections plus Navigating the Stars, but not the all the live records.

A month ago I hadn't heard anything past Thunder & Consolation (and hadn't even listened to those early albums in 25 years or more), and now I've listened to everything at least a couple of times (and most albums much more than that). The biggest shock to me is how strong and varied most of the post-2000 records are. I was vaguely aware that the band was still around, and I figured they were probably plowing much the same furrow as the had been when I stopped listening. I obviously did not give them near enough credit. I really like where the band have gone even up to the newest album. I may not love every song, but there are enough twists and turns to keep my interest. The band still rocks, but there is much more subtlety than I was prepared for, much more atmosphere. I love the tom heavy drums on some of the more recent albums, but totally different rhythms than the band was using years ago. Lots of chances taken with the arrangements.

I like all of the albums overall, but Between Dog & Moon, Winter, Carnival and Today Is A Good Day are at the top for me. From Here is growing on me too. I'm sure the more I listen the more those top spots will rotate.

So kudos to Justin and the band for making so many great records, thanks to Rooster_Ties for starting this thread and a big thumbs down to me for being a bit of an idiot and not keeping up with New Model Army all these years.

 

Man I love finding A new band. Reminds me of discovering fIREHOSE last year and Tragically Hip the year before that.

 

What do you think of "High"? "Between wine and blood" is also a very good mini studio album..."Happy to be here" and "Devil's bargain", fantastic songs. I must admit that finally, "Where i am" on the last album has a big grown on me, pretty good song in fact!

The 40th birthday gigs next year are going to be incredible, i was there in Paris in 2010 for the 30th birthday and they played two evenings, around 60 songs (even their great B sides!)...it was just fantastic!!