"Long Live the Clash" takes on a new meaning this month as five Clash studio albums from 1977-1982, including a never-before released U.K. version of the band's debut LP, are re-released by Epic/Legacy.

Albums available starting Jan. 25 include ''London Calling,'' the landmark ''Sandinista!'' (as a 2-CD set), ''Combat Rock,'' ''Super Black Market Clash'' and ''The Story of the Clash, Vol. 1.'' None of the albums have extra tracks, reportedly because the English punk band does not want to issue material that was never worthy of their original albums.

''Clash on Broadway'' was also re-mastered for this project, and re-sized from the long box into a cube configuration. The 63-song set includes live tracks ''I Fought The Law'' and ''Lightning Strikes (Not Once But Twice)'' plus unreleased tracks ''One Emotion'' and ''Midnight To Stevens.''

The U.S. re-release of the band's first album, '' The Clash [ tickets ],'' includes all 14 of the original U.K. album cuts. When Epic first released ''The Clash'' in the U.S. in October 1979, the album only contained 10 of the U.K. version's tracks, but the label made up for the missing songs by adding bonus 45 and EP selections. (It is also historically noteworthy that this album was not the one that introduced U.S. audiences to the group. ''Give 'Em Enough Rope,'' the group's second album in U.K., was released ahead of it in the U.S. in November 1978.)

An 18-song compilation of many of the groups hits--from ''Rock the Casbah'' to ''Tommy Gun''-is also now out in the U.S., having already been issued in the U.K. in 1991.

Original band members Mick Jones, Joe Strummer and Paul Simonon fully cooperated in the restoration project, supervised in London by their longtime studio associate Bill Price.

The only Clash album not included in the massive project was 1985's ''Cut The Crap,'' when Jones was no longer in the band, having been canned by Simonon and Strummer two years earlier. Most Clash aficionados do not consider this a real Clash album, and apparently, neither do Simonon, Strummer and Jones. It is still available as a CD from an earlier CD-issue project.

Today, vocalist/guitarist Strummer remains the most musically active. His latest album is ''Rock Art & the X-Ray Style'' (1999), in support of which he and his new group the Mescaleros toured last year. He and the band will be on the road again this month playing six concerts in New Zealand and Australia from Jan. 21 to Feb. 6.