"Combat Rock" is a fairly logical successor to "Sandinista!"…, but it's leaner and more concentrated—still eclectic, not very electric. Lots of layers.

Because of their sloppiness, The Clash frequently manage to persuade the listener that they can't write tunes any more and don't give a toss. This isn't true—the music here is varied and mostly works. Their attitude and subject matter remains ambiguous, though, often delivering attractive imagery but leaving you with doubts about its motivation….

The Clash wish they'd been born ten years earlier. They're steeped in a Sixties "radical" sensibility, preoccupied with Vietnam veterans, street poetry, guerilla struggles, death-as-film noir.

So, you have Allen Ginsberg delivering a few lines about urban angst as a preface to "Ghetto Defendant" a song which could easily have been written in Chicago in 1968….

It's strange that the blood and broken heads and napalmed children can seem so romantic...