No More Heroes was produced by
Martin Rushent. The album consists of new material except for four songs left over from the
Rattus Norvegicus sessions ("Something Better Change", "Bitching", "Peasant in the Big Shitty" and "School Mam"). Cornwell said "It helped having songs that were hanging over from
Rattus, they felt just as good. Add a few more and then suddenly, hey presto, you've got the second album." The opening track "I Feel Like a Wog" was controversial for its reference to
golliwogs which Cornwell used "for shock effect, but it was to put across a feeling", and despite lots of people "misunderstanding it" he said "a couple of black guys came back after one show and said: 'We get it.' That made me feel good." He admitted that the band deliberately tried "to wind people up", particularly with the track "Bring on the Nubiles", which is known for its sexual nature. He said the band found that "it was entertaining [...], fun and really harmless. People might say: 'How can you say that's harmless?' But we weren't trying to upset people. We were in the sweet shop and we were helping ourselves. We'd realised that we could upset people, so let's go to town, let's really upset them." He also felt that they "definitely couldn't get away with that now", saying: "We got away with murder." The album cover features a photo of a wreath placed on a coffin with the tails of several rats (the Stranglers' trademark). The brass plaque on the album cover was engraved by
Steven Stapleton, later of
Nurse with Wound. This cover was rushed as it was a last-minute choice; allegedly, the original sleeve depicted
Jean-Jacques Burnel alone on the tomb of
Leon Trotsky, and was abandoned owing to the other members being dissatisfied that it did not feature the whole band. Two singles were released from the album:
the title track, and a
double A-side of "
Something Better Change" and the non-album track "Straighten Out". ==Critical reception==