Nobody’s Heroes

tracks on LP: Gotta Gettaway | Wait And See | Fly The Flag | At The Edge | Nobody’s Hero | Bloody Dub | Doesn’t Make It All Right | I Don’t Like You | No Change | Tin Soldiers

Record label: Chrysalis CHR 1270

Released: November March 1980
Borrowed: 1981 (Stephen Winter)

Stiff Little Fingers | Nobody’s Heroes | (Chrysalis) 1980 | “Not produced by Nick Lowe” is the album’s most memorable sleeve note and, by gum, I’m ready to believe that. Subtle, SLF are not, Jake Burns‘ vocal chords sounding like they receive a thorough sandpapering, every hour on the hour.

Rougher than Strummer at his rawest, Burns’ voice is the most distinguishing feature of this album, which, like its predecessor, has arrived a good two years too late to have its fullest impact.

Judging by the credits, the Fingers are still very much the puppet of Daily Express journalist Gordon Ogilvie, whose philosophy about giving all the lyrics a political slant left the way open for the Undertones to become Northern Ireland’s freshest talent.

To be fair, this time round, politics take more of a subsidiary role, though “Fly The Flag” is hardly an exercise in patriotism, even if it is to be praised for its restrain. “Wait And See” is a rowdy two fingers at the band’s early sceptics which many young groups are likely to be able to identify with, while the single, “At The Edge”, is more universal still.

But the unbridled abuse of “I Don’t Like You” is nothing but a poor man’s version John Cooper Clarke’s “Twat”, and as for covering The Specials’ “It Doesn’t Make It All Right”, I do a better cover myself – ask John Shearlaw.

Even cornier is “Tin Soldiers”, doubtlessly based on CSN&Y’s “Ohio”, except anti-war songs weren’t even the last decade’s thing.

Musically, there’s nothing particularly ambitious, and if there still is a market for the three-chord thrash, I’m sure it’s more likely to be in the dance hall rather than the sitting room. At times, there’s some OK rock ‘n’ roll, but, I ask myself, is that what the world really needs at this point in time? An unholy pastiche of the Upstarts, Sham and early Clash? If you ain’t got the picture, you obviously do need it. I don’t. +++ (Record Mirror, 01/03/80)

Stiff Little Fingers | Nobody’s Heroes | (Chrysalis) 1980

Anyone waiting to write off Stiff Little Fingers simply because of their move away from Belfast is in for a big disappointment. Though sometimes a bit strained – eg their attempts at white reggae – or merely average, when they’ve got something like the utterly superb “Tin Soldiers” (as good as anything they’ve ever done) to focus their passion, concentrated energy and skills then there’s few to touch them.

A great, honest little band – more power to them. (8 out of 10) (Smash Hits, March 1980)

STIFF LITTLE FINGERS – “Nobody’s Heroes” (Chrysalis)

I CAN scarcely credit that it’s a full 12 months since the release of ‘Inflammable Material’ , that astonishingly strong first album by Stiff Little Fingers, so resoundingly does the impact of its brash impassioned outburst still ring in the ears.

Within an instant it smashed all suspicion that the young Belfast band had merely been adopting the surface surface style of terrorist turmoil (its barbed wire imagery would fit punk chic like a dream) to conceal a lack of substance; in fact there was a commitment and vision to match the vividness of the ‘local colour’ absolutely.

But that was 12 months ago, 12 months that has seen Stiff Little Fingers establish themselves as another successful act in the rock ‘n’ roll circus and so, inevitably, become more distant from the situation which ignited and hurled them on their headlong flight.

Inflammable Material

Where ‘Inflammable Material’ was a frenzied expression of breathless escape, an outpouring of fresh energy mingled with a state of disgust, ‘Nobody’s Heroes’ catches the band in a phase of growing self-awareness; still running, but allowing themselves a glance at how far they’ve come; still militant, but coming to terms with the realisation that like patriotism, anger isn’t enough – foul realities require understanding as well as that; still in the realm of the political, but trying to deal sometimes with the more purely personal also.

Above all, they seem to be trying not to repeat themselves – realising that each repetition grows necessarily more hollow than the last – to spare us the sad spectacle of shellshock rock degenerating into agit-pop.

The lyrical diversification on this album is reinforced by a certain broadening of musical horizons too – not too pronounced as yet, but the signs are there. Not surprisingly, therefore, ‘Nobody’s Heroes’ is not an album to match the sheer obsessive and single-minded thrust and attack of its predecessor – because that stage is past and rather than be content to mimic it, SLF sound determined to develop.

It’s not a perfect record in a sense, but it’s a hell of a good one. The twin guitars of Jake Burns and Henry Cluney, with the powerful back-up of bassist Ali McMordie and new(ish) drummer Jim Reilly, still mesh to form a rock ‘n’ roll unit of deadly effectiveness, full of demonic momentum and ever-present inventiveness.

Outright rejection

The harsh rasp of Burns’ voice gives everything that cutting edge which, tethered to the urgency of the songs, makes complacency impossible; there’s no comfortable way of accommodating this music. Only outright rejection or complete acceptance. Which is exactly the way things should be.

KICKING OFF with “Gotta Getaway”, a forceful assertion of independence and purpose, the band cartwheels through “Wait And See”, which is a sort of proudly defiant potted history of the group coupled with fond farewells to the original drummer Brian Faloon.

“Fly The Flag” pours withering scorn over the reawakened rat-race mentality that’s being stridently proclaimed as our economic and moral salvation, and to hell with those who can’t keep up.

“At The Edge” is another reminiscence about the teenage impulse to strike out for unknown freedoms, not the most novel theme for a song but breathing a fierce authenticity from every note all the same.

Side one closes with “Nobody’s Hero” itself – a slightly defensive piece of self-justification (prompted, one suspects, by a review of last year’s Lyceum show) to the effect that Burns emphatically rejects stardom and neither, by the same token, can he take responsibility for righting wrongs beyond his control. Talk of heroes, he’s saying, whether admiring or accusing, only distracts from the real problem; our inaction and passiveness.

“Bloody Dub” opens the second side and being an instrumental, it’s title could look at first like a gratuitous use of the vocabulary of tragedy simply for cheap effect. It isn’t. “Bloody Dub” is far better than a throwaway reggae work-out; the best exposition yet of the band’s potential, it’s an expressive and almost shockingly evocative piece of work. Shattering glass and grating guitar drive the message home as well as any words could ever do.

Whirlwind of noise

The album’s most surprising inclusion, however, comes in the form of a cover version: The Specials “Doesn’t Make It All Right”. Given SLF’s concern with bigotry in all it’s different manifestations, the lyrics follow on logically, and it’s not their first excursion into a reggae-based song either (the last LP had Marley’s “Johnny Was”); but the band’s frantic approach works against the restraint and simplicity inherent in the song, and it compares unfavourably with the original.

“I Don’t Like You” is just a semi-serious stream of vintictive words, rather on the lines of Cooper Clarke’s “Twat” (“If a thought came into your head / It would die of loneliness . . . You don’t entertain ideas / You simply bore them”) and “No Change” continues to explore the personal aspects of the band’s present situation as it relates to the lives they’ve left behind.

“Tin Soldiers” finishes the side on a more stirring note, a bitter tirade for recruiting sergeants everywhere and typical of the Fingers’ razor sharp whirlwind of noise.

Most of the words are again contributed by manager / journalist Gordon Ogilvie, as direct and concise as the music which brings them into life. Stiff Little Fingers might be nobody’s heroes, but they’re still worth anybody’s time. Don’t hang around. (NME, 01/03/80)