The third
Resistance 77 album captures the band in violent, vitriolic form, still pursuing the time-honored traditions of punk, but well aware that it's no good changing the world if you don't stay around to reap the rewards -- as the sleeve's rendering of the graves of
Johnny Thunders,
Sid Vicious,
Joey Ramone, and
Joe Strummer makes clear.
Indeed, though Long Time Dead is as fierce and feisty as you'd expect, there's an edge of dark mortality creeping in: "Saturday on the Terraces" mourns the passing of time from the point of view of a former football hooligan -- "where have all the bootboys gone? It's flares and slippers now"; "Long Time Dead" itself reminds people to get off their asses and accomplish something, because they're not going to live forever.
Elsewhere, the inefficiency of the police, the collapse of orderly society, and the rise of terrorism all paint a bleak portrait of the modern world, but fear not, for all is not as black as they paint it. "Pivo Na Zdravi" might not be the only song ever written about Czech beer (the Czechs themselves have surely written plenty), but it certainly has to be the catchiest. ~ Dave Thompson