I first heard The Alarm Declaration when I was 12 and have never really stopped listening to it and now I'm 38!. Rolling Stone magazine called this album 'brilliant' and I would not disagree. There have been a lot of musical comparisons between The Alarm and U2, but I've never really seen it myself, probably cos I was listening to The Alarm before U2.
I always found this album strange and haunting and still highly original, there hasn't really been anything even similar in my opinion; first world war, american war of independence, death, afterlife, morality, punk, cowboys, religion, working class, folk, country - it is undefinable. Like all great albums though it is a not just a collection of singles but a total world in itself.
If you only buy one Alarm album get this one, all the albums which followed this whilst being good to ok never really captured this raw brilliance. By the end of the 80's The Alarm were all but on the rocks, they started out with the passion and fire of The Jam and ended up like errrrr, well, ......U2, only without the patronising deepness and global dominance.
