Following a struggle with illness and a near break-up, Bradford stalwarts New Model Army are back on the music scene - five years after the release of their last single. Simon Ashberry reports.

It's been a long time coming but the New Model Army bandwagon is finally ready to roll again.

Diehard fans must have feared they had seen the last of the group - one of the most enduring rock acts ever to have emerged from Bradford.

But frontman Justin Sullivan has assembled a new-look line-up and the Army will be on stage for their comeback gig at the Town and Country Club in Leeds next week as they promote their new album.

Justin explained how the band had come close to splitting up since they last released a record five years ago. "We took a bit of time off in 1993 and 1994 and got back together at the end of 1994, played a few gigs and started writing stuff in 1995," he said.

"We did a lot of the recording for the album at an artists' retreat place up near Middlesbrough. Unfortunately we tried producing it ourselves to start with and we wasted a lot of time. We did a lot of songs but there came a stage in 1996 where we decided to split up.

"There was a festival where we played to 25,000 people and although we didn't tell anyone, that was going to be our final gig. But then we came off stage and we just thought we had such a lot of good songs that it would be a crime not to record them. We just had to have a producer."

Having tracked down Simon Dawson, the man they wanted to twiddle the knobs, the result was Strange Brotherhood, the first new studio album by New Model Army since The Love of Hopeless Causes in 1993.

Even since recording was finished, though, things have not been plain sailing for the band.

Drummer Robert Heaton, who has been with the group since they formed in 1980, has been forced to quit after undergoing surgery to remove a large benign tumour from his brain and Justin has also had to undergo an operation to remove a tumour on this throat.

Robert's replacement in the band is Queensbury-based drummer Michael Dean. The rest of the New Model Army line-up is completed by bass player Nelson, guitarist Dave Blomberg and keyboard player Dean White.

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