Fantastic Plastic - Now That's What We Call Music Vol.1

The best thing about compilation albums is that they always contain great songs from great bands, as well as a few songs and bands that you may have missed the first time around. Fantastic Plastic’s super “best of” is no exception to this rule.

Marking the achievement of their 100th release and the opening of their online digital store, Fantastic Plastic have brought together sixteen top pop tunes, many of which have never been released in a digital format before.

As always, compilation albums don’t just include the best songs that have been released in the past; they also have a few exclusive new releases. So we have the latest offering from the wonderfully poppy Bearsuit, as well as the newest effort from art rockers Help She Can’t Swim.

More beautiful stuff comes from the now defunct Ikara Colt, the brilliant Guillemots and post-rockers The Strange Death of Liberal England, all showing the diversity of Fantastic Plastic’s roster.

The north east is also represented by Kubichek! and The Futureheads, with one representing us slightly better than the other. The best being Kubichek! with the anthemic Nightjoy, whilst The Futureheads sub two minute Ticket leaves me massively disappointed.

However, the highlights for me, are finding bands that I’d never listened to before or bands that had passed me by. This is why I absolutely love some of the songs on this album. I don’t know why I’ve never come across Buffseeds before, or listened to Angelica or Astrid before, but I’m so happy that I have now. They are much sweeter and maybe more sickly (in a good way) than the rest of the stuff on the album, but it all still seems to fit in.

The album closes with another gem, this time from William Campbell and Kevin MacNeill, mixing narrative and compelling vocals on Local man Ruins Everything.
A lot of care and attention has gone into the creation of this album and it really does show. Fantastic Plastic have produced something very special and worthy of a fantastic label.

4/5


Originally published on the official NARC. website. You can also get more information on NARC. magazine, including outlets, at their MySpace.