Various Artists - Mass Transit
(Woodson Lateral)
I know what samplers are for, but I've never really found much use for them. I prefer to research a band that I might find interesting instead of sifting through dozens of tracks to find the handful I like, and then find out that the bands I liked only had one good track, and it was on that sampler. Thus, I was a little apprehensive when I saw Mass Transit in the mail. This just wasn't my thing.
The first track confirmed my worst fears. "Artificial Reef Association" by The Sweet Science sounds like a Radiohead outtake, something that wasn't even good enough to make it onto their odds and ends collection, Amnesiac. It had the ringing guitars that would explode into neo-rock sludge, and the all too yearning vocals. In fact, if no one told me this was The Sweet Science, I'd just assume it was Radiohead. This is a good example of why I find most samplers useless.
The rest of the disc doesn't quite fall to those depths, but there's nothing astonishing here. Wimbeldon pull tricks right out of the Modest Mouse hat, Sysex's "A Lonely Maim Building" sounds like something Soderbergh decided wasn't good enough for the soundtrack to Schizopolis, Lover/Adaptor turns in a boring acoustic song, and the list goes on. I listen to each track, trying to find those ones that really get me going, but it quickly becomes evident that these are in short supply. Since most of the bands on these samplers haven't really hit the big time yet, I'll bet you could find song samples from their websites (provided they have one). If they don't, it's no big loss, there's plenty of good music out there to get, anyway.
And besides, who goes searching for samplers, anyway?
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