The Jam are a young three-piece band who have the potential of becoming the most commercially successful of the new wave outfits. I say new wave advisedly, since the Jam bear no relation to the mass conception of punk—whether it be quasi-anarchist politics or out and out mindless aggression.

The Jam are simply new, young and part of today's extensive musical reaction against the dinosaur bands who have dominated rock for the last eight years. Thus, they are new wave….

The Jam, comprehensive school educated, have played extensively in social clubs and dingy pubs for a considerable part of their two-year existence and the music they are making now represents the release of the frustration to which such a restricted environment must give birth.

On the evidence of ["In the City"], however, they've also controlled this outburst with a rare skill in musicians of their age and...