in fact, evoke Bono's flair for melodramatic imagery. "Dance the dance that plays with fire/Play guitar and play inspired," Mark Chadwick urges on the jiglike chorus of "Far From Home," while "One Way" finds him recalling, "We choked on our dreams/We wrestled with our fears/Running through the heartless concrete streets."

Musically, the band aspires to be sort of a Celtic Clash, tautly weaving fiddles and banjos with crashing guitars and raw, nasal vocals. For all their goodwill, moreover, the Levellers can address the powers that shouldn't be with a formidable brashness. "Keep the young ones paralyzed, educated by your lies/Keep the old ones happy with the news," Chadwick snarls on "Sell Out," and he asserts on "Liberty Song": "They're trying to get to me.... This means nothing to me/The way we were is the way I wanna be." Though not a masterwork on the order of, say, London Calling or War, Levelling the Land is rife with the same urgency and indomitability that made those records impossible to ignore. "The problems of the world won't be solved by this guitar," Chadwick admits on "One Way," but the Levellers remind us that at its most ardent, rock & roll can convince us that solutions exist. (RS 633)

ELYSA GARDNER