[The] message of Combat Rock—the Clash's fifth album and a snarling, enraged, yet still musically ambitious collection of twelve tight tracks on a single disc—is pop hits and press accolades be damned. This record is a declaration of real-life emergency, a provocative, demanding document of classic punk anger, reflective questioning and nerve-wracking frustration. It is written in songwriter-guitarists Joe Strummer and Mick Jones' now-familiar rock Esperanto, ranging from the locomotive disco steam of "Overpowered by Funk" and the frisky Bo Diddley strut of "Car Jamming" to the mutant-cabaret sway of the LP's chilling coda, "Death Is the Star." And like every Clash record from 1977's "White Riot" on, it carries the magnum force of the group's convictions in the bold rhythmic punch of bassist Paul Simonon and drummer Topper Headon and the guitar-army bash of Strummer and Jones. Yet Combat Rock's overwhelming sense of impending...