The Ex: Turn : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

"We need poets, we need painters/Filmers and writers, dancers, musicians, actors and sculptors, bakers, electricians, thinkers and doctors. . . ." So goes the roll call in "Listen to the Painters," the explosive recruiting pitch for a new people's army that opens this two-disc blast of revolution rock. One thing missing from the list: We need the Ex. Now in its twenty-fifth year, the independent Dutch band -- a dream collision of Crass, Sonic Youth and Faust -- has boldly expanded punk's language of resistance, bringing free jazz and the poetic tension of African rhythm into its combat-guitar theater. "Getatchew" is a fierce salute to Ethiopian saxophonist Getatchew Mekurya. "Theme From Konono" is a killer jam for four minutes, like the Fall in dub, until singer G.W. Sok calls us back to business with "The Old World, the new world, the Third World agree/For assholes unlimited, it's time to retreat."