It’s difficult to pinpoint exactly where it all went wrong for My Awesome Compilation. With ‘Every Souvenir…’ the band where one of the UK’s biggest buzz bands and were attracting attention from a slew of big labels. With a decent booking agent and a handful of good tour supports, it seemed inevitable their Hassle/Full Time Hobby/Sorepoint full length release would send them into the big leagues as a radio-friendly chart-attacking band they ultimately deserved to be. But while ‘Actions’ was a huge sounding record that nailed many of the elements needed for a hit record, it didn’t resonate with people as the early material did, for whatever reason. The tour supports continued but, again for whatever reason, the buzz died down and MAC disappeared to Japan and Australia, where they probably did a lot better.
When their Gravity DIP split release came out, many people where shocked with the release of ‘that fucking disco song’, a tune as far removed from the MAC of old it was hard to distinguish whether it was genuine or a pisstake. I think it’s since been established it was the latter. Now the band are back after some time away and ‘Frontiers’ is yet another switch, this time a much more rockin’ amigo, dropping a lot of the keys and synth and general chirpy-ness for a darker more intense experience. In the main it works too – Chris’ vocals have lost that daft Mockney edge which littered ‘Actions’ and, as a result, sound much more natural.
There are plenty of riffs on this record and My Awesome Compilation are at their best when their foot is pressed firmly towards the floor. I don’t have a tracklisting, but track 7 is an excellent footstomper which features some crashing drums and the meatiest riff the band have ever written. Track 3 is another song which showcases a new side to the band, a side you would not have thought was within them when you listen to a track such as ‘As Always’. Ditto track 9. That said, the band’s influences are sometimes a little too obvious – the riff in track 4 sounds like ‘Killing In The Name Of’ by Rage Against The Machine. When I say sounds like, I mean rips off.
Old-skool MAC fans will be surprised when they hear this record because it is vastly different in sound and tone to their older records. The change suits them, it’s free of any kind of pretense and it’s as far removed from fashionable bands that it’s almost as though the band of brothers opted to do the complete opposite of what people perhaps expected of them. Will they reach the heady heights and buzz that preceeded ‘Actions’? I don’t know – but one thing is for sure, this is a much, much better album.