Like a good friend once said, “compilations are like pick n mix bags”. This compilation by fellow Website Gold Flake Paint is more Haribo Starmix than Liquorice All Sorts. Don’t get me wrong, I love All Sorts, but I know some of them are acquired tastes.

By no means is this a warning that From the outside looking in is sickly sweet with mushy songs, it’s just that the chosen songs are easier on the palate. Some are demos (North Bay‘s spiritual ditty ‘Golden years’), some are live (Dad Rocks!‘s ‘Funemployment’) and some are lengthy remixes (Empty Pool). The rest are a combination of all other states of mass, presented in a clinical manner that gives each one a little space to represent their genre. Think of it as a periodic table.

Dizzy Moths and Conveyor go so well, like a well-prepared Manhattan cocktail goes with cheese and rye crackers. Ditto for the Trifecta of Rock (TM) of this compilation:  American Wolf, with their math rock/post rock mixture, the heavy rocking Paws, feeling like a late night high speed drive down the Cuernavaca highway and the utterly rocking Team Morale, who simply own this compilation in less than 3:30 minutes.

Compilations can also be like a classical music composition, with movements of varying moods completing the circle of emotions we all breathe. An acoustic/slow section is expected and you get Dad Rocks!, Lowpines (magic!), Breathe Out (with the enthralling ‘There’s an animal in my eye’, rock it!), Yellowbirddd (love the intimate room atmosphere), Sparrow and the Workshop (missed them) and Johnny Foreigner (who keep their manic punk attitude in the nylon field).

There’s a bit of shoegaze too, in the form of the reverb heavy Black Books, who sort of give it a bit of slocore in ‘Shipwrecked’. Speaking of that, the slocore genre gets a bit of love too, with Loch Awe strutting (slowly) their stuff in the magnificent ‘10,000 Streams’ (love the guitar tone). Foreign Fields … God knows what they play, but it’s simply mesmerising, sort of an ambient work with a heartfelt piano that flutters around. Simply perfect!

You can download this compilation for free at Gold Flake Paint’s Bandcamp. You can also order a handmade copy if you believe in having physical copies (which are always lovely).

Words: Sam J. Valdes Lopez.

Gold Flake Paint Website. Twitter. Facebook. Bandcamp. Soundcloud.