Label samplers like this one for Boxman Records would work best if they were interactive, where you could go in and delete all the tracks that bore you or rub you the wrong way. By nature samplers are – and I’m aware that I’m coming perilously close to quoting Forrest Gump here – like a box of chocolates; you've got some poppy punk mixed in with some hardcore mixed in with some emo, etc. If I was able to trim the fat from my Boxman sampler CD, here are the bands I’d have left: The Front (fast paced with raspy Distillersish vocals), Big Fat Ass (kind of a heavier Bad Religion), Friendly Fire (‘77 style punk), Stool Sample (trashy hardcore with vocals that are like Good Clean Fun meets GG Allin, if you can imagine that), I Give Up (sloppy riff-heavy with Accused-like vocals), and Torpedo Lucas (a faster, messier Social Distortion.) So, bottom line, if they wanted more than six dollars for this thing, I’d pass.
–aphid (Boxman)