New Model Army

Taking their name from Oliver Cromwell's 17th Century English revolutionary army, New Model Army were formed in Yorkshire in 1980 as a staunchly political counter-culture outfit who, through the ensuing decades, built a devoted following. The driving force throughout their career has been Justin Sullivan, who was raised in a Quaker family and temporarily performed as a solo artist under the name Slade The Leveller. He set up New Model Army with bassist Stuart Morrow and drummer Robert Heaton and had a hit single in 1984 with Vagabonds, although they were best-loved as a live band, delivering impassioned political anthems with a shouty velocity that saw them compared to the likes of U2 and Simple Minds. Their left-wing stance and anti-Thatcher themes gave them powerful focus through the 1980s with pointed tracks like "Spirit Of The Falklands" and "Small Town England," while they also collaborated extensively with poet/performance artist Joolz Denby. Never far from controversy, the group were once banned from touring America and caused outrage with their track "Here Comes the War," but continued to record and tour throughout the 1990s and 2000s, despite regular personnel changes and the death of Justin Sullivan's former songwriting partner Robert Heaton from cancer in 2004. The New Model Army story continued with the High album (2007) and Today Is A Good Day (2009) while releasing albums at a consistent rate through the 2010s, from 2013's Between Dog and Wolf and 2016's Winter to From Here in 2019. New Model Army released their sixteenth studio album Unbroken in 2024, exploring a wealth of sociopolitical themes and personal observations with tracks like lead single "First Summer After."

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