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The sound of the streets before they've been cleaned, the sound of the suburbs once the nice folks moved away, the Macc Lads are one of Britain's most dementedly reliable punk bands, the non-stop roar of sex and beer and cigarettes, warm meat pies and football games, and all set to a musical soundtrack that makes everyone else sound anemic. There are a lot of serious-minded folks around who really don't see the appeal of this band, who reckon that once you've heard one song, you've heard them all. And that's true to an extent. But it doesn't change the fact that the Macc Lads remain possibly the last true folk artists British rock has got, and the Anagram label's exhumation of the best of their output is like going off on a decade-long trawl through the very darkest corners of Thatcher's Britain -- corners in which the Ladds' obsessions aren't simply a way of life, they're all you have left to hang onto. Two full albums, the band's fifth and sixth, are here, together with bonus tracks drawn from the more or less contemporary Bog'n'Roll Circus and Turtle Heads EPs; but a word of warning. Don't play this with the windows open, don't play it when your parents are around, and don't play it in the belief that one Macc Lads album is much the same as every other one. It is, but you'll want them all regardless. This depravity is contagious. ~ Dave Thompson
