Various - Cease and Resist: Sonic Subversion and Anarcho Punk in the UK 1979-1986

Long time in the making 18 track, double LP compilation surveying the white hot streak of punk activism that emerged in the UK post '77 year zero. Much ink has been spilled on the importance of punk, post-punk and DIY, to the point that it often feels as if there's little else worth saying that isn't another retread, but anarcho and peace punk does still feel like a surprisingly under-examined subcultural space, by its own making necessarily subterranean and marginal, too abrasive and politically uncomfortable to be easily subsumed into the mainstream narrative. And so it goes that if resistance can't be co-opted for monetary gain, then it's inevitably buried... So it stands that anarcho might be the one remaining strain of punk that retains an almost solely underground life force, the music as well as the message sounding genuinely obtuse and undiminished, even if David Beckham did once wear a Crass t-shirt. Amongst the more familiar names here (Crass, Flux of Pink Indians, Poison Girls), Cease and Resist also does a fine job in showcasing the sonic range of a movement falsely codified as rudimentary brick on the accelerator sloganeering (which it also thrillingly is), be that Annie Anxiety's cut n paste dadaist horror, the dystopian abstractions of Alternative TV's, D&V's dub-warped pop melodicism or the slow-mo gothic groove of The Mob's apocalyptic No Doves Fly Here. As you'd expect from Optimo, it's all tied together with the requisite aesthetics and on-point commentary, with the cherry on the top/conceptual completing of the circle being that the whole endeavour extends the work of the CND initiative by functioning as a fundraiser for Faslane Peace Camp. Right on and still relevant.