4 out of 5

Label: Antiquated Future

Produced by: Various

What it says on the digital tin! But also more specifically tracks from the first four years of Antiquated Future releases, a label I rather favorably view as akin to early Matador: a home for indie-fied popsters and folksters, whose penchants for catchiness keeps them away from being too harsh, or too twee, but with a fair amount of all of that in tow. Yeah, Matador was perhaps a bit more experimental than AF overall, but in the same way that they became one of the first big indie labels one might’ve “trusted,” AF occupies a similar feeling in a smaller corner of the world, juggling having enough range to make checking out new stuff worthwhile, though also sticking to some core aural tenets which are of comfort.

Namely: good melodies, quality introspection in the lyrics, and some fuzzy pop rock or quirky acoustic pop.

This sampler can be overall assessed a couple different ways: that it’s exactly a representation of its bands, and thus a proper sampler; that it maybe doesn’t bring the most striking offerings from those bands, in favor of keeping the sequencing somewhat varied. Ideally you strike a balance between the two, making every band worth following up on, but because this sampler goes from bright and poppy to sparse and sad, the more “general” appeal of its music maybe gets more limited as we go along, which is also a criticism of that sequencing – I do wish the emotional palette kind of went up and down throughout, but instead it’s kind of a slope to the end.

Still, all of these artists are interesting, even if not all of these function as “singles,” and the sampler absolutely accomplishes the mission of giving you an accurate feeling for what Antiquated Future – forever one of the great label names – was during its initial years.

Bonus points for being digital but still including a list of which albums the tracks came from. Every sampler / comp should do this, digital or physical!