After the class of 77 had done their punk thing, and “serious” journalists wrote the movement off as a temporary stain on the musical landscape, the kids of 82 snatched it out of the gutter and breathed new life into the faltering corpse. Of course simply rehashing the old sound would have been a waste of time, and so bands like Discharge, The Exploited and GBH sped things up, bunged a healthy amount of Motorhead-style grime into the mix, and spearheaded a new wave of bands. 

This double disc collects all of GBH’s singles – all the hits cranked out one after another for almost two hours. It’s pretty safe to say that the likes of GBH laid down a blueprint sound that Agnostic Front or Crucifix built on. In fact, I remember when I was a young ‘un and got hold of the legendary Burning Ambitions compilation that featured the cream of the punk rock crop – GBH stood out as one of the more “hardcore” sounding bands out there. If you like your punk rock loud and raw but are not too familiar with the roots of the genre, then this is an ideal place to start. Tom Chapman