PlanetMosh Keeping it Metal
New Model Army recently bought back the rights to all their pre EMI music and have now embarked on a campaign to re-release their music, re-mastered and with additional tracks, from the same period as the original albums. The first release in this series is their debut album Vengeance which was released in 1984. The new release is called New Model Army Vengeance – The Whole Story 1980-84 and contains the whole of the first album re-mastered plus never before heard demos from their formation in 1980 to 84. Alongside are tracks that only appeared on EP’s (remember them?) released at the same time as the BBC Radio 1 sessions the band did at the time and one remix of the track Vengeance done by Zion State in 94 that the band liked. Along with the extra music the 2 CD release also contains new sleeve-notes and previously unseen Joolz artwork from the Vengeance era, there will also be a vinyl release which will feature a re-mastered heavy vinyl copy of the original album plus both CDs.
This re-mastered version of their Vengeance sounds excellent and has clearly had much love and hard work by the band to make it sound as good as possible in the digital age. There is some tape hiss on the demo tracks but that’s only to be expected and I personally think it adds to the ambience of the music being presented in it’s raw early days before the band got near a studio and the higher quality equipment that they contain. I’m very much a fan of bands that when they deicide to release a re-mastered version they don’t just do the tracks that are on the original album and that’s all as I’m left with the feeling why buy the new version if you already have it. The Mission and here NMA have the right idea and release lots of additional material that couldn’t be released at the time due to the constraints of vinyl LP’s playing time from this era. It’s here that this release scores very highly in my book as it collates together the EP releases from the 80 to 84 period along with the BBC sessions that the band did back then giving the listener a far better aural catalogue of the then fledgling New Model Army.
Overall this is a fine sounding quality re-mastered release with plenty of bonus material that should please both the die hard fan and anybody who is checking out one of Britain’s unsung heros from the early eighties for the first time that thankfully is still going strong and planning to release a new album of material next year.
Disc 1
- Christian Militia (Vengeance Album)
- Notice Me (Vengeance Album)
- Smalltown England (Vengeance Album)
- A Liberal Education (Vengeance Album)
- Vengeance (Vengeance Album)
- Sex (Vengeance Album)
- Running In The Rain (Vengeance Album)
- Spirit Of The Falklands (Vengeance Album)
- Bittersweet (Single EP release)
- Betcha (Single EP release)
- Tension (Single EP release)
- Great Expectations (Single EP release)
- Waiting (Single EP release)
- The Price (Single EP release)
- Nineteen Eighty-Four (Single EP release)
- No Mans Land (Single EP release)
- Vengeance Right To Silence (1994 Dub remix by Zion Train)
Disc 2
- History (Unreleased demo from 1981)
- I Believe (Unreleased demo from 1981)
- Living A Lie (Unreleased demo from 1981)
- New Model Army (Unreleased demo from 1980)
- The Dam (Unreleased demo from 1984)
- The Cause (Unreleased demo from 1981)
- Paralysed (Unreleased demo from 1981)
- Fashion (Unreleased demo from 1980)
- New Frontiers (Unreleased demo from 1980)
- Great Expectations (BBC Session Kid Jensen
- I Wish (BBC Session Kid Jensen)
- Notice Me (BBC Session Kid Jensen)
- Liberal Education (BBC Session Kid Jensen)
- Small Town England (BBC Session John Peel)
- Spirit Of The Falklands (BBC Session John Peel)
- Christian Militia (BBC Session John Peel)
- Running In The Rain (BBC Session John Peel)
- Drag It Down (BBC Session Janice Long)
- Frightened (BBC Session Janice Long)
- The Attack (BBC Session Janice Long)
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