Dipple, you may well need to have a subscription to The Times to read it on line, but here it is:
"New Model Army at the Forum, NW5
One of the great lost tribes of rock, New Model Army made one of their periodic resurgences this year with their most successful album for two decades. Between Dog and Wolf marks a creative renaissance for the group from Bradford and has provided a springboard for a forthcoming film of the same name, which tells the heroic story of a band who inspired a passionate cult following in the 1980s and, despite appearances to the contrary, simply never went away.
Going to one of their gigs in 2013 felt like gaining admission to a pagan, post-punk, masonic gathering. Men in the mosh area in front of the stage took their shirts off and during a song called High , a couple of them stood fully erect, arms outstretched, on their friends’ shoulders. This number was offered by the singer and guitarist Justin Sullivan as a replacement national anthem for Scotland or indeed any country in need of a modern call to arms. “Pay no heed to unfaithful messengers,” he sang, his long, brown hair framing his weathered, rock-warrior features.
Sullivan, the sole remaining original member of the group, was a lean, charismatic figure, dishing out harsh home truths and neat guitar riffs with a clipped air of authority. Around him the rest of the five-man band created a dense, menacing musical patchwork built around heavy, war-drum tattoos supplied by Michael Dean behind the main kit and the bass player Ceri Monger, whose duties also included hammering a pair of floor toms when demanded.
New songs Pull the Sun and Stormclouds pursued an elemental theme with a fierce, but intelligent intensity, while old favourites including The Hunt, No Rest and Vengeance hacked into the rock motherlode with a still feral aggression. With fists, blood and an over-active lightshow pumping, they reached a grand, emotional finale with Green and Grey. Victory never gets any closer, but the long march forward continues."
David Sinclair
