BOXSET REVIEW: Various Artists – 1981: All Out Attack!
(Captain Oi!/Cherry Red Records)
1981 was a year where most people thought punk rock was not only dead, but buried in a very deep crypt marked ‘do not disturb’.
While it may not have been in the best of health, it was getting quite angry, and this latest in the excellent Captain Oi! series, which started with 1977, and shows there was still much to enjoy.
This 3CD clamshell box set contains 75 tracks from the good, the bad and a few indifferent bands who were broadly grouped under the punk umbrella.
Like previous sets, there are noticeable absentees, but what’s most apparent is that the hits were starting drying up. Whereas the 1979 and 1980 sets (reviewed HERE and HERE) had plenty of chart fodder, there’s not a lot here.
Yes, there are tracks by successful bands like Stiff Little Fingers, The Damned, UK Subs, Cockney Rejects and Angelic Upstarts, but even their most passionate fans would concede they aren’t among their best.
Punk was becoming more DIY again, with bands like Blitz (whose debut EP gives the collection its name), The Partisans (with the excellent Killing Machine), Chron Gen, Discharge, Abrasive Wheels, The Exploited, Peter & The Test Tube Babies, Infa Riot and Anti Nowhere League (with the magnificently offensive So What) flying the flag for the new breed.
Anarcho-punk is beginning to make its presence felt too with the likes of Subhumans, Zounds and Flux Of Pink Indians, The Business represent the burgeoning oi! scene with Suburban Rebels, while there’s an enjoyable slice of punk pathetique from the Toy Dolls with Tommy Kowey’s Car.
Killing Joke, Theatre Of Hate, Chelsea, The Ramones, Disorder, The Revillos and GBH show us how very different punk can sound, and there’s the usual slew of bands you’ve never heard of – Quality Drivel, The Reporters, Skodas or The Fenzyx anyone?
Standouts? I’ll pick three: Demob with the wonderful No Room For You (how the hell did I miss this when I was 15?), Anti Pasti’s original scuzzy single version of Another Dead Soldier, and The Defects’ Brutality (with the “SS, RUC” chant, as immortalised in the film Good Vibrations.
New-to-me gems include Breakout, from Seaham in County Durham with Get Out-Fight Back, Bonnie Parker & Acme Attractions’ fine cover of Eve Of Destruction, and the original version of Two Years Too Late (covered by Anti Pasti) by The Epileptics.
Curios? There’s a few; a pre-Pogues Shane MacGowan in The Nips, with Happy Song; Jump Squad (who would morph into Guitar Gangsters) with Lord Of the Dance; and the mad-as-a-badger Tenpole Tudor with Swords Of A Thousand Men. Yes, I know it’s not very punk, but I like it. So fucking what? 7/10.
