My Awesome Compilation - Frontiers

Smalltown Records

April 23, 2008, 05:03 PM

The movie High Fidelity told us: “Now, the making of a good compilation tape is a very subtle art. Many do's and don'ts. First of all you're using someone else's poetry to express how you feel. This is a delicate thing.” My Awesome Compilation have clearly never seen this movie, or read the novel by Nick Hornby. This, their second album is a let down, to put it as simply as possible.

Not that there ever should be any rules as such when it comes to making music, you at least expect a little better than this. My Awesome Compilation have supplied a mix of guitar-heavy rock songs filled with cheap melodies and the sort of stuff which was getting bands noticed two years ago but now just seems overdone. At just ten songs too it is just about pushing the boundaries of what you’d expect an album to be; the whole thing is just short of thirty-two minutes.

The opening song, ‘Red Is For Danger’ is a perfect set-up for the letdown which is to come. Everything feels too forced and done with a specific outcome in mind. ‘Deal Me In’ offers to pull you out of the rut early on but only ever goes through the motions, it’s such a typical modern rock song once again, big guitars, big drums, melodies; too predictable. In honesty, nothing changes from here on in, My Awesome Compilation have just got it wrong on this album. For a band who promised so much previously it is a real let down and a disappointment. They’ll probably grow in stature from this album and tour like crazy, for that alone they do deserve to do something. But based on the quality of music they provide on this album, they ought to think about doing something else.