One man’s freedom fighter is another man’s terrorist. ALF stands for Animal Liberation Front and this is a collection of 27 songs by the likes of Conflict, Flux, Crass, Dirt, Exitstance, Icons Of Filth, Subhumans and Chumbawamba. And yes, they all cover the subject of animal rights. The 26-page booklet with the digipak gives you lyrics, disturbing photographs of ‘animal torture’, essays and a history of the animal rights movement. (The Hunt Saboteurs Association formed in 1963. It didn’t all start with anarcho-punk.)
Music-wise, the six Conflict songs are the most raging and articulate, using storytelling, rather than hectoring and lecturing. Poison Girls’ solitary contribution, The Offending Article, is equally compelling, and Subhumans and Citizen Fish have a bit more personality than some of the other more humourless Mortarhate-roster bands. Despite Lost Cherrees and the irrepressible Chumbas’ slight tuneful relief, the rest is a bit of a quagmire of well-meaning, intense, but musically unimaginative, protest-punk. A patchy but powerful collection, fuelled by passionate beliefs.
