The 1981 Listening Post - Anti-Pasti - The Last Call

 Reviewed by Jim Coursey

Released: 1981 Anti-Pasti The Last Call Genre: Punk Rating: 3 out of 5 Highlights: Another Dead Soldier Anti-Pasti was a Derby, England punk band whose membership fluctuated over the course of their brief initial existence, but they somehow managed to pump out two albums that as best I can tell were more or less forgotten. [1] A lone user review on AllMusic.com calls this album a “clone of The Exploited, Charged GBH and Crass” which seems two-thirds fair in that I’d have a hard time distinguishing them from The Exploited or GBH, while I find Crass a bit less predictable than the rest. It’s the kind of punk that seems to be made by people who found The Sex Pistols’ Steve Jones to be too frilly – aggressive music with the musical panache of a white t-shirt, blue jeans, and a pair of Doc Martins. I’ve never been particularly versed in this style of punk – post-Pistols I want bands who mix it up a bit, not dumb it down. Thus I struggle to understand the “copycat” claim in that Anti-Pasti’s timeline doesn’t seem so different than the bands they were “copying.” They got their start in 1978 and released their first album in 1981. The Exploited’s debut full length dropped in 1981 and GBH didn’t release theirs until 1982. While I marginally prefer GBH’s debut, I’d listen to “The Last Call” before I’d listen to The Exploited’s 1981 album. (And I’d listen to Crass before any of them.) But maybe to someone in the know they were behind the pack in terms of singles, EPs, live shows, etc. “The Last Call” is a fine debut that seems like it should be enjoyable to fans of the genre. If they didn’t turn enough heads then, I doubt they would now. But it’s recorded with a crisp sound, so it’s somewhat easier to appreciate than the sludgier efforts of some of their contemporaries. ********** 1. I wonder whether they named their first album, 1981’s “The Last Call”, based on the assumption that they were on the verge of breaking up.