CD: 3535152
RELEASED: 2006
LABEL: EMI

01. I Love The World
02. Stupid Questions
03. 225
04. Inheritance
05. Green and Grey
06. Ballad of Bodmin Pill
07. Family
08. Family Life
09. Vagabonds
10. Archway Towers

2006 digitally remastered reissue. New Model Army 1989's Thunder And Consolation is without question, their best album to that point in their career. They'd learned atmosphere, for one thing. The decorative guitars on "I Love The World" and "225" jitter like caged test-tones rattling the bars in search of freedom, while Justin declaims in a fraught, ragged monotone, and the bass is a fearsome swamp of echo. "Inheritance" is sung accompanied only by a tribal timekeeping beat and a slow succession of ringing piano double-whole-notes. "The Green and the Grey" and "Vagabonds" make violins a central part of the arrangement, spacious and mournful on the former, anthemic and lilting on the latter. "Family Life" is a stark campfire song, Justin's lowest stage whisper to picked-out guitar. "Archway Towers" gnashes intimidatingly between two minor chords until it spirals inward to oblivion. "Stupid Questions", "The Ballad of Bodmin Pill" and "Family" rush along in classic rabble-rousing fashion but even they display newfound tension between the taut basslines of the verses and the sing-along rush of the choruses. This album is a classic!

Influences / Similar Artists:
Echo & The Bunnymen, The Cure, The Mission, The Sound, The Alarm