Sculpture Magazine

Formed in 1984, over 25 years, under-the-radar New Model Army has experimented with almost every possible array of sound, save country or rap.  Perhaps this explains their loyal, yet exceptionally diverse fan base.  In my decade tenure at the 1,000 person venue, 9:30 Club in Washington, D.C., no band was ever agreed upon, save, New Model Army.  It was as if they were impervious to musical genre pigeonholing.

But to be fair, the band that influenced so many really does have roots in rock, blues, and at times, Goth theatrics.  And as much as I'd like to, I can't lay claim to having seen the band in the '80s (I was far too much immersed in bad hair-metal radio staples), but it was one night in a dingy, dark club where a young Trent Reznor (who could have told me to jump off a bridge and I’d have done it), pledged his love to New Model Army, that I ran right out to my local Newbury Comics to search for this unknown band from across the pond.

I'm now in my mid-30s, and newly settled into the Bay Area of San Francisco.  I've been lucky enough to see Justin (who, for all intensive purposes, is New Model Army), twice live in the past two years. And now matter how big the audience, his lyrics penetrate with heavy weight and the guitars blaze, and I always come away with a sense of heightened religion.

"Autumn" is hands-down one of the best songs on the album.  Telling a story of being on the cusp of winter, it is a wonderful-and poignant- anthem with remarkably relatable lyrical imagery: 'We took the last bottle of wine/And drank a toast to mortality/ And we scrawled across the sand'.  Although I could have done without the chorus that came in at the end of the song, it doesn't dampen the feeling that growing older doesn't mean one loses the ability to write meaningful songs.

'Peace is Only' (for the dead and the dying) seems to be the central theme running throughout Today is a Good Day.   And while the sentiment may sound at times, trite, the deep baseline and fading in and out of vocal, pull the song up from the swamp of banality it could have sunk into.

I'm not sure why British songwriters flourish so much in their later years (see Nick Cave and Jarvis Cocker), while American artists become sad caricatures of themselves.  Today is a Good Day is certainly not a pinnacle of Justin’s talent, there are enough good tracks to add to an impressively diverse career catalog.

Track List

01. Today is A Good Day

02. Autumn   

03. Peace is Only   

04. States Radio  

05. God Save Me  

06. Disappeared  

07. Ocean Rising               

08. Mambo Queen of the Sandstone City              

09. La Push             

10. Arm Yourselves & Run               

11. Bad Harvest 

12. North Star