This is already the third album of the working band BLAER, founded in 2012 by the composer and pianist Maja Nydegger. YELLOW is the result of a longstanding and diligent collaboration. The band concept sets on a balanced group sound and a calm, focussed flow of music.
Give 'Em Enough Rope, for all of its many attributes, was essentially a holding pattern for the Clash, but the double-album London Calling is a remarkable leap forward, incorporating the punk aesthetic into rock & roll mythology and roots music. Before, the Clash had experimented with reggae, but that was no preparation for the dizzying array of styles on London Calling. There's punk and reggae, but there's also rockabilly, ska, New Orleans R&B, pop, lounge jazz, and hard rock; and while the record isn't tied together by a specific theme, its eclecticism and anthemic punk function as a rallying call.
If punk rejected pop history, LONDON CALLING reclaimed it, albeit with a knowing perspective. The scope of this double set is breaktaking, encompassing reggae, rockabilly and the group's own furious mettle. Where such a combination might have proved over-ambitious, the Clash accomplish it with swaggering panache. Guy Stevens, who produced the group's first demos, returns to the helm to provide a confident, cohesive sound equal to the set's brilliant array of material. Boldly assertive and superbly focused, London Calling contains many of the quartet's finest songs and is, by extension, virtually faultless.