Stiff Little Fingers - Nobody's Heroes [Remastered and Expanded]

It's easy to see why Stiff Little Fingers' Rough Trade debut remains so highly rated, but for the discerning fan of second generation punk, Nobody's Heroes is every bit as special. For a start, new drummer Jim Reilly was an improvement on Brian Faloon (who gets a heartwarming tribute on "Wait and See"). Secondly, Jake Burns' songwriting collaborations with journalist Gordon Ogilvie are really beginning to pay off. The cornerstones of the LP are "Gotta Gettaway," "At the Edge," and "Tin Soldiers" – three songs which, in different ways, brilliantly articulate the frustrated ambitions of young men in search of expression and identity, trapped in nowhere jobs or situations. Though "Suspect Device" and "Alternative Ulster" had long since ensured they would always be tagged with the label of "political punk," in truth SLF were always more interested in their immediate environment, and finding a way out of it. A couple of plausible stabs at reggae are more than an interesting aside. [by Alex Ogg, AMG. 4.5 out of 5 stars]

Roaring back with a vengeance and seemingly without pause for breath, NOBODY'S HEROES finds Stiff Little Fingers once again examining the frailty of the human condition in time of war. While this preoccupation with life and death can come across as either preachy (Billy Bragg), goofy (Chumbawumba), or even pedantic (the Clash's later work), to SLF it seems more than just a reaction to circumstance than a defense mechanism in a country divided by barbed-wire.

However, SLF are canny enough to realize that no mere punk band can actually cause change by itself (as evidenced in the brilliant title track where lead singer Jake Burns advises fans not to let your heroes get your kicks for you) as true change comes from collective involvement. "Tin Soldiers," with its rant against the futility of the army, and "Fly the Flag" with its indictment of Great Britain's colonialism and neglect of the poor prove that perhaps the best resistance is found in punk rock catharsis. "Bloody Dub" finds the band once again embracing outlaw imagery and the oppositional culture of reggae's most mysteriously satisfying subculture.

Issued only a year after Inflammable Material, if it weren't for Jake Burns' trademark singing voice, punters would swear Nobody's Heroes was the work of a different band. Issued by Chrysalis in the U.K., Stiff Little Fingers sounded like a band who had gone through their own metamorphosis. The songs – still written by Burns and journalist Gordon Ogilvie – were tighter, there was a bit more space, and the hooks were solid, cutting razor sharp. While many of the band's original fans cried "sellout" many more new ones came on-board and more temperate critical heads posited that the album was actually light years beyond its predecessor musically and lyrically. History bears this out. While it may sound like a slicker version of "punk," it also came across as an urgent, deeply personal recording that identified the Fingers confronting everything and everyone under Thatcherism – unemployment, poverty, personal alienation, the hollow promise of a "great" Britain – and Burns and Ogilvie wrote in such a personal, immediate way that it is impossible, 25-years after the fact, not to be utterly engaged. Production style notwithstanding – amazingly unobtrusive for 1980 – with songs like "Fly the Flag," the title track, "Wait and See," "Tin Soldiers" and "Gotta Gettaway" (all of them with plenty of the Burns' snarl and spit in the vocal) – Stiff Little Fingers had become a mature rock & roll entity who had lost none of their anger or their immediacy but moved from the cliché's of later-'70s punk into the new decade. The bonus tracks include another version of "Bloody Sunday," "Straw Dogs," "You Can't Say Crap on the Radio," as well as the second part of an interview with Burns – the other two parts are on Inflammable Material and Hanx. Fans that purchased the British reissues in 2001 will not need these, since they are identical. Those coming to the band for the first time will be well-served by Inflammable Material first, but this one is also essential. [by Thom Jurek, AMG]