Know Your Rights is a passable intro. The band's trademark bleak and political vocal style could use better support from the instrumentals, but it still works out ok to establish the mood.
The headline songs of the album- Should I Stay Or Should I Go and Rock The Casbah- have never really appealed to me. The former works well as catchy pop, but doesn't have any lasting appeal. Rock the Casbah has great lyrics, but I'm not a fan of the '80s influence.
Instead, Straight To Hell is the highlight of the album for me. It sets a wonderfully intense yet sparse post-apocolyptic mood, much like The Wanderer by Johnny Cash / U2.
At the other end of the enjoyment spectrum is Overpowered by Funk. Sorry for stubbornly pigeonholing a band... but... a funk song by The Clash? Really?? Even if it were a great song, it's still completely at odds with their image and ideals.
To get to the crux of the matter, the rest of the album is pretty mediocre, and I think the reason is amateur-hour instrumentals. This is because the bleak vocals are a given, and on previous albums I think it's a big part of their style. But they rely on the smooth and wonderfully layered instrumentals to offset the bitterness. And Combat Rock has, despite the varied world-music influences, pretty uninspiring backing instrumentals.
Inoculated City even takes a lot of cues from Lost In The Supermarket (off London Calling), but unfortunately with very little of its songwriting brilliance.
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