Another year, another posthumous Clash release. What makes From Here to Eternity worth your time and, more importantly, your money? Well, for starters, as opposed to many previous Clash live offerings, this one doesn't sound like the recording equipment was stuffed up Topper Headon's ass during the concert. Secondly, if you're not familiar with the Clash, From Here to Eternity is more or less a sampler of what some would call the band's greatest hits, save for "Rock the Casbah," which is notably overlooked. (I guess fellow Sony Music artist Will Smith's not done milking that one yet.) Conversely, diehard Clash people may be disappointed with the pedestrian selection, even though all of the tracks are executed flawlessly, some almost indistinguishably from their respective album versions.

10 of these 17 tracks are culled from the band's consensus classics-- their eponymous debut and London Calling. Their fans are likely to be so distraught at the underepresentation of Sandinista! as to spill their Caffe Mochas all over their Haggar Wrinkle-Free Cotton Pants (TM). If you're a casual Clash City Rocker-- which may or may not be an oxymoron-- you probably own most of these tracks already. Thus, the issue becomes: why buy them again?

Well, these are fairly faithful renditions, and unless you really want to hear what they sound like with crowd noise, there's not much to discover. But if you're amazing lazy, like us, From Here to Eternity does save you the trouble of unfolding yourself from the trademark Al Bundy pose and getting up to skip to your favorite tracks. What it really boils down to is: does your stereo have a remote control? If it does, a) fuck you, you're a douchebag, b) you shouldn't be listening to the Clash, c) you probably don't need to buy this album.

The bottom line on From Here to Eternity is that it seems to be geared more towards the legions of punk kids who are just discovering the Clash than to those fans who are already well-acquainted with Strummer, Jones, and Associates. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, though, since no fault can be found with the tracks themselves, and since they accurately depict a great band performing a smattering of their most renowned songs live. And for the uninitiated listener, it captures the tunefulness and energy of the Clash just as well as their studio work does. If you've always wanted to be into the Clash, but were afraid the big scary cashier at Tower Records would taunt you within an inch of your life, this is your opportunity to minimize that trauma into one convenient purchase. For everyone else, here's to hoping they follow up From Here to Eternity with From Here to Eternity II: Through the Portal of Time.

-Beatty & Garrett