I love compilations that have some a cohesive vision and more planning than the run-of-the-mill sampler. The first volume of the Pangaea series, assembled by the webzine Punk International, accomplishes its task of collecting punk music from across the globe quite admirably. For all intents and purposes, most of this material is likely completely unheard by the North American audience.

"Pangaea" offers up 26 bands from 21 countries across the world. Canada's Belvedere and Glasshead along with The Gamits and The Fonzarellies from the US are the sole North American representation on the disc. Highlights include France's Burning Heads laying down a reggae track, Tastes Like Chicken's finely crafted punk rock from Switzerland and the Netherland's ever entertaining Travoltas validating all the international acclaim they get. My favorite track is a trade-up between the driving punk'n'roll of Italy's Peawees and the unique sounding horns of South Africa's Leek and the Bouncing Uptones. The rest of the disc covers every continent with the exception of Australia and Antarctica including the Dominican Republic, Brazil, England, Belgium, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Austria, Israel, Turkey, Singapore, Indonesia, Korea and Japan.

What surprised me most was how little you can actually pick out the nationality of the bands here. While the styles vary from punk to power-pop to ska to metal, very little in the music links the bands with their home countries. It's a testament to the global influence of a few select genres… quite evident when you have an album with Dutch surf harmonies, French reggae, Japanese Oi and Turkish metalcore.