Jangly guitar pop riven with whisps of rain and honeyed penguin harmony. A few misfires, sure, but such is evolution. Well worth the ducats for songs you'll forever play.

Rock and roll from the factory floor. "Non-Alignment Pact" and "Modern Dance" are the only reasons you need to buy this CD. High glare sodium pop snap. Let's pogo amid the bricks and broken glass and shattered dreams, baby.

In 1980 I picked up the 45 -- remember those? -- of Fa Ce La backed with Raised Eyebrows, and after a single play realized I had found a band that was charting its own course over a musical terrain laid bare by Punk and New Wave. A quarter-century later and the LP still gets me twitching with frenetic rhythm crazy guitar catharsis. Too good, too damn good.

Whiskey crazed jungle madness gutter rolling in slums of LA. Twitchy voodoo stalks mad king. Drink the swamp water, friend, and enter the flames....

I'll keep this review succinct: while one can certainly quibble about the inclusion of this song or that band, "No Thanks" provides an admirable overview of early Punk that spans several continents and stylistic trends. More critically, this isn't some "Greatest Hits" compilation designed to sell CDs and little else -- whoever chose these songs knows the genre intimately. How else to explain the presence of such unknown but deserving artists as Alternative TV, the Mekons, the Dils, the Saints, and Johnny Thunders? If you never got around to picking up the 45s way back when, "No Thanks" will fill many gaps in your collection. And if you were too young to have made it past the bouncers at the Rat or the Mab or CBGBs, "No Thanks" gives a welcome feel for the three-chord catharsis that at the time could only be found in risk-taking dives like these or on a scattered handful of radio stations. For the rest of us: nostalgia for an age yet to come.