Adam And The Ants: Kings Of The Wild Frontier (CBS/Sony/2016)

Kings Of The Wild Frontier was the album that started “Antmania” in the United Kingdom. It also contained “Dog Eat Dog” (UK #4), “Kings Of The Wild Frontier” (UK #2) and “”Antmusic”” (UK #2). The album itself reached #1 in the UK, #44 in the US and earned the band a BRIT award for Best Album and a Grammy nomination for Best New Artist.

It featured the Burundi dual drumming of Chris Hughes (aka Merrick) and Terry Lee Mail. The glam meets art rock guitar of Marco Pirroni. There's shades of Ennio Morricone all over the album and images of American Indian meets American Cowboy of the old West. All delivered in a knowingly cam, post-art school way. By all accounts it is a classic album.

Sony has just reissued the album on vinyl. It's absolutely 100% faithful to the original UK release. It even includes the Adam And The Ants Catalogue, which is basically an awesomely cool magazine all about the ants and features a ton of photos and paraphernalia of the time.

Highly recommended for all New Wave lovers. And loves of post-punk and garage too.

Special Thanks To Tee-Vee Game's Dave Rerecich.

And now, here's the video review:

The Clash: Black Market Clash EP (Epic/1980)

The Clash have been dubbed "The Only Band That Matters". Coming from the original UK punk scene, The Clash were an important band, both genuinely and superficially. I often wonder what a modern audience would make of the Clash now. They were as impassioned as they were insufferable and they cared as much about "the message" as they did their well-groomed image. They have always been one of my favorite bands, but I've always been able see both sides of them. Their documentary Westway To The World was as riveting as it was revisionist (the band curiously failed to even mention the last three years of its' history). The band released twenty singles and six albums in only eight years time.

Black Market Clash was a 10" EP released as part of Epic's Nu Disk series. Nu Disk was a brief series of 10" EP's released in 1980 (other notable acts to be part of the series are Cheap Trick and Gary Glitter). It's a collections of singles, B-sides, dubs and outtakes. "Capital Radio" and "Bankrobber" were both single A-Sides (the latter in an extended dub-form), "Cheat" is from the UK version of their self-titled debut album, "Time is Tight" is a cover of a Booker T & The MGs song and the remaining tracks were UK-only B-Sides.

 Black Market Clash was released right before the triple-album Sandinista!. All of these tracks were assembled on CD as Super Black Market Clash in the mid 90's.I personally like 10" vinyl records so I'll go out on a limb and say, sure, why not, buy it. It's a nice little fill-the-gaps release.

Here's The Video Review: