Labels: Deep Elm
Review by: Mike Whelan
I was a bit uneasy about reviewing this one. “Why are these songs unreleased?” I kept thinking. “What was wrong with them in the first place?” The blurb from Deep Elm assured me that this is not a sampler, and that these are not “b-side’ tracks “” but I still hesitated before hitting play.
And I was pleasantly surprised. Deep Elm are right, this is not a sampler. If it were, it would probably suffer from the disjointed mish-mash quality that so many other label-samplers fall prey to. Instead the tracks are well chosen and manage to fit together rather well. The CD promotes some of Deep Elm’s lesser-known bands (past and present), such as Walt Mink, Cross My Heart, and Drive Til Morning, and mixes these up with some of the label’s recent heavyweights like The Appleseed Cast, Camber and The White Octave.
The Appleseed Cast contribute the strongest track, “The Spider Wall,’ which combines some of their early rough edges with the spacey-ness of “Low Level Owl’ and is probably one of the better songs I’ve heard by them. Camber’s “Lantern Circle’ is as good as anything from “Wake Up and Be Happy,’ while The White Octave’s “A Chinese Character’ is another great song, outshining the material from their latter day non-Deep Elm releases.
Drive Til Morning and Benton Falls also deserve honourable mentions for “Tell Me a Story’ and “Occupied’ respectively, promising indicators for their new albums. All of the other bands chip-in with strong individual tracks, but they are slightly outshone by those already mentioned. Slowride and Race Car Riot offer the weakest material, but while I’m a fan of neither band, diehards might find something to enjoy.
With only ten tracks the compilation may seem a little thin on the ground, but the material here is well worth anyone’s time. These aren’t throwaway compilation tracks, but fully-fledged album material in their own right.