Anti-Pasti - Rise Up album review

Brit punks finally pull their finger out.

Anti-Pasti Rise Up album cover

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They might share their name with a favoured starter of the middle classes but Anti-Pasti have been serving up cheesed-off working-class British punk since 1978, although they did take some time off.

Third studio album Rise Up follows in the boot steps of much-loved ‘81 debut The Last Call and the following year’s second stab, Caution In The Wind. Despite the downtime, and the fact that only drummer Kev Nixon remains from the founding line-up, frenetic new tracks Lies Lies Lies, Gagging Law, Hurricane and the excellent title track take us right back to the glory days of primo Pasti platter Let Them Free/Another Dead Soldier.

It’s all government lies, poor scrotes on minimum wage, and getting the shaft from The Man. Rise Up is the sound of the foot coming down, then, and nostalgic punks and the new crop of Oi! lovers will feel right at home. It’s loud, totally lacking in melody and all sounds the bleedin’ same. What more could you want?

Ed Mitchell
Writer

Ed Mitchell was the Editor of The Blues Magazine from 2012-16, and a contributor to Classic Rock and Louder. He died in October 2022, aged 52. A one-time Reviews Editor on Total Guitar magazine from 2003, his guitar-modding column, Ed’s Shed, appeared in print on both sides of the Atlantic (in both Total Guitar and Guitar World magazines), and he wrote stories for Classic Rock and Guitarist. Between them, the websites Louder, MusicRadar and Guitar World host over 400 of his articles – among them interviews with Billy Gibbons, Paul Weller, Brian Setzer, profiles on Roy Buchanan, Duane Allman and Peter Green, a joint interview with Jimmy Page and Jack White, and dozens of guitar reviews – and that’s just the ones that made it online.