GUNS BEFORE BITTER!

There are times when the idea of engaging in a full and frank discussion with the entire Tory Cabinet assisted only by a loaded Kalashnikov AK-47 and two spare banana clips is not without appeal. New Model Army's `Vengeance` is for just such moments.

Hang on, though. Don't we wish the Blue Meanies a swift journey to hell because we, after all, stand for peace, love'n'understanding? Fighters for peace tread a fine line and rebel rockers for peace even more so (check out The Clash's atrocious glorification of violence on their last tour for proof)

Truth is, is the essence of rock'n'roll is tension and release, repression and violence, bottled hysteria and blank-firing rhetoric- which is why it's such exciting fun and really gets me going. Which also means it's less likely to be a catalyst to action and more a substitute, a palliative whereby gunslinging anthems turn slogans from being means to an end into ends in themselves.

But. I find it hard to resist a magnificent knock-'em-down rocker like `Vengeance's' title track. Nazis on the run, drug dealers and British Movement type proselytisers all get nailed by the resounding chorus "I believe in justice I believe in vengeance I believe in getting the bastards!!!"

You wouldn't want to argue with Slade The Leveller (Justin to his chums) as he roars these lines. Half Jaz Colman, Half Tetley Bitterman, Slade on stage gives it mucho rockstar, gargoyle features wracked inbetwixt Uncle Joe Strummer and 17th century ranter. He also plays a mean SG, leading column of a three-pronged attack also comprising Stuart Morrow's Burnel-ing bass lines and Rob Heaton's emphatically no frills drumpower. Theirs is ature Brit, Northern grit sound, a socialist Killing Joke, a denazified Theatre Of Hate, HM-punk die-stamped into service of prechewed, popped-up Crassisms or else the now impotent clichés of `77 garageland.

But when it comes to our Susan's three Bs of belting pop, namely Balls, Bounce and Brutality, New Model Army have got a gobful. Which is why, in a way, I quite like `Vengeance`, even though it's a bull in an ideological china shop, stamping and snorting and threatening to turn into some unholy amalgam of K.Joke, The Alarm and latterday Stiff Little Fingers at any second.

And one last thing: as New Model Army rightly assert in `Christian Militia` and reiterate in their every note and beat, "hatred makes the adrenalin flow". Fine but don't make a career out of it.