Anti-Pasti “Anti-Pasti”

Published On: January 2, 2022Tags: , , , , , ,

Anti-Pasti “Anti-Pasti” 1983. Rondelet Records. A compilation album of early 80’s UK punks Anti-Pasti’s EPs and singles, from ’80-’82. The sound is pretty bare-bones punk with a style that blends Clash beats and working class oi sensibility (though Anti-Pasti themselves were “anti-oi” and recorded their hit “Six Guns,” which went to #1 on the UK indie charts in ’81, as a response to the growing oi movement according to Allmusic). The single “Six Guns” along with its b-sides “Now’s the Time” and “Call the Army (I’m Alive)” appear on this comp and those are a couple of my favorite tracks…or more accurately I find those songs OK but not earth shattering. Also included on Anti-Pasti are two tracks from their debut EP Four Sore Points…(1980): “No Government” and “1980” as well as the singles “Let Them Free” (and its b-sides “Another Dead Soldier” and “Hell” from 1981) and “East to the West“/”Burn in Your Own Flames” (1982). One of my favorite tracks is the super-tight “The Last Call,” the title track from Anti-Pasti’s 1981 album The Last Call.  This comp is in our “should it stay or should it go” pile. I do like a couple of the songs but I have no emotional connection to Anti-Pasti the way I do to some of their contemporaries (they toured with The Exploited in the UK and with Flipper, Naked Raygun and Dead Kennedys in the US) so I think this one has got to go.