A STICKER on the cover of the Clash's new album describes it as "18 new songs from the only band that matters," and though that rings of promotional hype, the Clash have never been a band to go along with hype. They've played a little trick on their promoters, andtackedanother song to the end of their double album without listing it on the jacket, or telling the guys who wrote the ad copy. That's the keynote for the music on this album: it presents a world gone slightly askew and takes a sort of grim joy in pounding the disturbing discord home.

A couple of years ago it would have been ludicrous to describe the music of the Clash in such terms; a tight, angry punk band, they merely translated blunt, explicit feelings of political frustration into bracing, furious music. The first Clash album (released as the band's second record in the U.S.) spit out all subtlety, and the second deliberately sidestepped it.

With London Calling, the Clash have discovered the metaphor. It gives them new freedom to travel through musical idioms and political subjects, and they take the grand tour. While past Clash albums have contained many songs cut from the same musical fabric, London Calling races through a catalogue of styles and sounds that involuntarily brings the Beatles to mind.

Abandoning blunt messages allows the Clash to adopt musical subtleties. On their first album, they railed against society--

Who needs remote control from the civic hall

Push a button activate you gotta work and you're

late

...Big business it don't like you--it don't like the

things you do

You got no money so you got no power

But London Calling goes after fascism with much more potent and universal images:

Taking off his turban they said is this man a Jew?

Cause they're working for the clampdown

They put up a poster saying we earn more than you

When we're working for the clampdown...