Penetration - The Best Of Penetration (2005)

It's too bad that this best-of compilation of sneering and snotty British punk from the legendary but painfully overlooked Penetration is an import, because American punk revivalists could learn a few things from the mercurial English quartet. Their 1978 debut, Moving Targets gets the most airtime here, and rightfully so. Band staples like "Don't Dictate," "Stone Heroes," "Free Money" and "Life's a Gamble" show a group that fully embraced the anti-authoritarian attack of bands like the Clash and the Adverts without becoming a slave to its limited sonic and compositional foundation. Vocalist Pauline Murray could snarl with the best of them, but tracks like "She Is the Slave" and "Life's a Gamble" from 1979's critically slaughtered (unfairly) bid to bridge the two worlds of punk and new wave, Coming Up for Air, shows a singer who could command an audience's attention no matter what genre she felt obliged to interpret.~Best of Penetration Review by James Christopher Monger