Consumer Guide Album

Guerrilla Girls! [Ace, 2022]
There are holes aplenty in this decades-spanning U.K.-generated she-punk anthology. Among the missing are not only the Runaways, Siouxsie and the Banshees, X, and Liliput but Hole, Sleater-Kinney, the Donnas, and Le Tigre. Nor do obscure finds by Blondie, the Raincoats, the Bangles, and the Au Pairs catch fire after repeated plays the way they're presumably supposed to. They're hot enough, though, and in the end the collection's 25 tracks and 40-page booklet gather force on bulk alone. Again and again--from the Bags' "Survive" at track two to the Tuts' "Let Go of the Past" an hour later--songs I don't recall hearing in their historical moment sound better every time they come up. Listenable entertainment and an advanced history course at the same time. A-