Rock Art and the X-Ray Style

Joe Strummer & The Mescaleros

Product Details

• Audio CD (November 2, 1999)
• Original Release Date: November 2, 1999
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Hellcat Records
• ASIN: B00001X51J
• Also Available in: Vinyl  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (49 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #7,193 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

The Clash made their splash playing raucous punk rock earmarked by a twin chainsaw guitar attack and Joe Strummer's strained vocal barks, so it's easy to forget that they could create some lovely music. See Sandinista!'s "Rebel Waltz" and "Charlie Don't Surf," London Calling's "Death or Glory," and Combat Rock's "Straight to Hell." The boy who used to scream "White Riot!" realized there are other ways to be heard than shouting fire in a crowded theater, and there is no denying that the Clash wanted to be heard. It's a lesson Joe Strummer has carried on as he's gone from angry young man to wizened elder, and with his new album, Rock Art and the X-Ray Style, and new band, the Mescaleros, he trades in the snip and snarl of punk for a loose yet powerful amalgam of blues, country, and reggae grooves. It provides a perfect canvas for Strummer's still potent messages of social insight and political critique, painted with his warm but ravaged vocal chords. Aside from the misstep of the second track, "Sandpaper Blues," Rock Art bristles with outstanding songs. On "Tony Adams," Strummer rants atop a rocking reggae shuffle, "I am waiting for the rays of the morning sun / Somebody tell me clearly--has the New World begun?" On "Techno D-Day" (as close to a Clash City Rocker as you'll find these days) he reinvigorates rock with a revolutionary agenda. The album's best cut, however, is the lovely closer, "Willesden to Cricklewood," a wonderful, wispy tune that finds Strummer waxing poetic on an afternoon whiled away with friends and family in a small town. It's a far cry from the apocalyptic vision in the Clash's "London's Burning," but no less powerful. --Tod Nelson

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Joe at his best, December 14, 1999

By	"jryan777" (San Rafael, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This is Joe singing, playing, and writing at the height of his considerable powers. Unlike Paul Simon and others who've delved into certain ethnic-musical stylings and come off like someone doing just that, Joe moves thru world-beat polyrhythms and folky sounds and straight R&R in a way that makes the sounds wholly his own, as if they've been absorbed thru his skin like, as he says, the rays of the morning sun. I saw Joe just a couple months ago and the new stuff, the stuff from this album, came off extremely well. The Mescaleros are a top-notch band, aiding and abetting Joe as he fought the law, lived by the river, and went straight to hell with as much grace and power as they do on the Xray material. Yalla Yalla was downright hypnotic, causing the entire packed club to bob and nod like one big neon-lit protoplasmic entity. Nitcomb is so pensively sweet and Willesden so purely evocative, I have to say that there are few others - Tom Waits, Lucinda Williams, Steve Earle, and of course Bob Dylan, come to mind - who can compete on Joe's level. The thing I like most about this album tho, is the way it grows on you. I played it and liked a couple things. Played it again and thought it was alright. Played it again and started smiling, and a week later my jaw was aching with the never-ending grin of near-musical orgasm. This is the best thing I've heard this year, and it would make the top 5 of almost any year I can recall. Joe's the man.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Joe saw the world; made a timeless record, November 3, 2006

By	77Jim (Philadelphia PA) - See all my reviews

There is beautiful music on this disk. It is one of my favorite records, praise I would not hand out frivolously. Joe's music here is rich, textured, subtle, worldly, gentle, introspective... but it is also catchy, energetic and charged. Like the Clash catalog, this album is a progression forward with musical exploration. Clash records didn't always strike gold, but you can't accuse Joe of recording the same album twice. The music on X-Ray achieves power without over using the typical "punk" techniques of loud volume, machine-gun drums (sorry Topper) or excessive angst. It's like sitting down with an older wise man and letting his experience and insightfulness dazzle you gently without explosions or exaggeration to hold your attention. There is a toned muscular confidence on this album that keeps the listener there. The music is solid. There is no shortage of ideas or over used ones like the case with Sandinista. Each song has it's own clear identity. This is the 80's album Robert Plant wishes he could have made when he was pretentiously toiling in World music and coming up dull and duller.

Put this disk in the car stereo and go for a drive. By the time "Diggin' the New" and "Forbidden City" kick in, you will already be in a great state of mind.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars "It's gonna take a nitcomb to get rid of me...", August 13, 2002

By	Gena Chereck (Nebraska, USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I bought this 1999 album about a year ago -- at the same time as Global A Go-Go -- and I'm still asking myself why I waited so long to get it. Apparently picking up where the Clash's Combat Rock (1982) left off, with its cohesive mix of world-beat ("Straight to Hell") and radio-friendly pop ("Rock the Casbah"), ex-Clash frontman Joe Strummer works similar magic on Rock Art And The X-Ray Style (only his second solo album since his 1989 debut Earthquake Weather). He expands his world-music horizons on "Sandpaper Blues" and "Yalla Yalla," rocks out on "Forbidden City," and has a nice punk-funk thing going on with "Techno D-Day" (about cops threatening to shut down a rave) and the surreal travelogue "Tony Adams." Plus, his trademark rasp sounds as great as ever.

I love his lyrics, too. In "The Road to Rock 'n' Roll" (my favorite track, featuring both a mournful pedal steel and a D.J.'s "scratching"), Joe waxes poetic: "On the road to rock 'n' roll, the lonely sing a soulful song, leave a little light in the wilderness for somebody to come upon." The folk-based "X-Ray Style" shows his thoughtful side, with lines like, "I'm counting the stars and the telegraph poles, and each one represents the hopes of a soul." In the lush, pretty "Willesden to Cricklewood," the middle-aged punk tells us, "How I would love to speak to everybody on the street / Just for once, to break the rules, I know it would be so cool."

Oddly enough, the two most generic-sounding tracks have the most remarkable lyrics. In the arena-rocker "Diggin' the New," Strummer shares with us some obvious but important advice: Better to live in the here and now ("Crashing head-on into the future, it won't even leave a dent / Just walk in like you own it, remember it ain't set in cement") than to keep dwelling on the past ("I got no time for the Luddites always lookin' back down the track, saying 'Can you spot one more detail, Jack?'"). The pop ballad "Nitcomb" is the most touching, as Joe truly sounds like a guy on the verge of a major professional and/or personal comeback: "It's gonna take a nitcomb to get rid of me, 'cause I just realized that it was meant to be / And I'm standing at a sale for the shoes of bankrupt men, and I just had to buy a pair to show that life can live again." If this album is any indication, Strummer is a mature punk who still has a lot left to say.