Taste: Streetcore

I found the Mescaleros before I found the Clash and, by and large, prefer their work. Don't get me wrong, I love the Clash, but I'm several times more enthusiastic about Joe Strummer's later music.

This one is the usual mix of influences you would expect from Strummer - rock, punk, folk, dub - but the assembly is more clearly as a Rock album.

Perhaps not as ambitious as its predecessor, Global-A-Go-Go, the tracks here are more crisply formed and the hooks are more prominent. It’s more accessible, I suppose is the point I’m trying to make.

It may have been a different album if Strummer had lived, but this posthumous release is a terrific epitaph to a punk great.