Compiling two early EPs, 13 Songs leads off with Fugazi's best-known song, the white-hot dub-punk anthem "Waiting Room," and keeps going with one feral rocker after another. 

 Repeater is a development and refinement of the same basic approach, this time as a refutation of mass culture: "We owe you nothing/You are not what you own," MacKaye bellows on "Merchandise." 

 With Steady Diet of Nothing, they slow down and dig in, making the music both tougher and more complicated. Lally's bass parts are three parts Joy Division to one part dub; you can hear the band's years of playing together. 

 Illness is everywhere on In on the Kill Taker, literally or metaphorically. It shows up all over the lyrics, and there are sick, nasty guitar noises starting or ending most of the songs. 

 Red Medicine continues along the same path into even denser, darker territory and suggests that Fugazi is feeding on lots of stuff that's very different from its own music. "Fell, Destroyed" even borrows a hook from Tenor Saw's dancehall reggae. 

 The disjunction between the anthems and the arty moments of End Hits is schizzier still: MacKaye's "Five Corporations" savages music-biz hegemony with laconic precision, and Picciotto sings "Guilford Fall" like his head's exploding. 

 A soundtrack to a documentary about Fugazi's first decade, Instrument includes oddities, instrumental doodles, and a half-dozen demos, mostly of End Hits songs. It's mostly ragged and unformed. 

 The four core members of Fugazi (plus live percussionist Jerry Busher, playing with the group for the first time on record) are clearly pulling in different directions on The Argument, and the result, miraculously, is their best album. 

 Fugazi has played only a handful of shows since the release of The Argument. They insist, however, that the band is not finished, and they've been releasing old shows as part of the Fugazi Live series.