The Specials
Album: More… Or Less. The Specials Live
Label: Chrysalis
Tracks: 26
Website: http://www.thespecials.com

Sometimes bands need time and space in which their music can ferment, find its place and reveal itself in its full glory. And so it was with The Specials. Their initial ferocious flush of glory in the late 1970s and early 80s saw them kept at arm's length by the intellectuals, mobbed by the poptastic plastic rudeboys, targeted by racists, lauded by anti-fascists, even as they soundtracked Nelson Mandela's long walk to freedom and blew away the casual prejudices of an entire generation.

Their spikey blend of metropolitan punk rock speed and Jamaican ska was filtered through a pluralism that was everyday to them, but seemed to capture the imagination of impressionable teenage minds in every distant corner of the nation. Good job too as it paved the way for greater tolerance, more understanding, less fear and plenty of good time nights at the village hall disco.

Hit records seemed to come easily, nearly always infused with a message worth heeding - Rat Race, Do Nothing, Stereotype, Too Much Too Young and the monumental Ghost Town. Their albums were equally ripe with comment and top tunes - Little Bitch, Do the Dog, Nite Klub, Concrete Jungle, Blank Expression - while carefully chosen covers (Guns of Navarone, You're Wondering Now, A Message To You Rudy) and their arresting version of 60s suedehead and skinhead dress completing the package.

That it lasted barely two years seemed absolutely perfect to those fortunate enough to have seen them at first hand and a parting of the ways in 1981 took Terry Hall, Lynval Golding and Neville Staple off to pineapple hairdos and TOtP with Fun Boy Three, while founder Jerry Dammers worked his way through various musical excursions until it all fizzled out by the late 1980s.

Meanwhile, The Specials' output and spirit were routinely cited by emerging bands as a major influence and pressure mounted for a fully fledged reunion until, finally in 2008 it happened. That Dammers didn't stick with the reformed line up that toured last year is a shame, but on this evidence the 21st century Specials more than do justice to his work.

Older and wiser they may be, but this mature line up is just as able to rouse the rabble as it ever was. More… Or Less is a superbly recorded and packaged double CD set that draws its tracklisting from the group's first two album and captures Hall and Staple in fine vocal form, trading lines that as grown men sound just as damning as they were 30 years ago. Meanwhile, the band packs a meaner musical punch than ever, riding the songs' inherent dynamics where they once charged down the nuances with a furious storm of savage beats and rat-a-tat rhythms.

Like the band itself, we'll never be 16 again… but others will and they should not be denied The Specials and some of the most defining youth music of their era, or any other for that matter.

Nick Churchill
www.thegranvillechambers.co.uk