Though it offers a nearly complete retrospective of
Agnostic Front's career, including music from virtually all of their albums, this release is hampered by its poor judgment in sequencing tracks. Rather than following the obvious chronological order route, so as to display this seminal New York group's evolution from rude punk rockers to hardcore pioneers to mediocre metalheads and back to hardcore once again, Relatively simply throws it all into a big, confusing stew. The result is far from disastrous, but along with the uneven quality of the band's latter-day material, it raises the question of whether this constitutes the best "first glimpse" purchase for new
Agnostic Front fans. The excellent
Live at CBGB is just as attractive, but it's hard to compete with the nearly flawless 1990 reissue combining the band's best two albums,
Cause for Alarm and
Victim in Pain, onto a single CD.