Various Artists
Ten Years In The Trenches
Ivy League


Any compilation album released by a record label is likely to be either a promo CD (given away for free with the purchase of another album) or a brag session demonstrating the wealth of talent they have contracted. 'Ten Years In The Trenches' is definitely the latter. Complete with a detailed history of the burgeoning Aussie success story and happy snaps aplenty, it exists to show how far Ivy League have come in ten short years.

The 22 songs on this album can essentially be spilt into two groups; the first half contains mostly Triple J hits and the second half contains the obscurities. The album starts out with a new song, Out Of My Hands, by an Ivy League supergroup featuring Josh Pyke, Youth Group's Tony Martin and Patrick Matthews, 78 Saab's Ben Nash, The Vines' Hamish Rosser, Red Riders' Adrian Deutsch, and Neon's Josh Bitmead. This is followed up with the biggest band Ivy League has ever seen, The Vines, and their worldwide hit Get Free, while What You Gonna Do? (The City Lights) clearly shows how use on a TV ad can ruin a song and remove indie cred from a band.

The irrepressible energy of Peabody's Got You On My Radar is a welcomed addition, though the dreamy Rubin, is a strange choice for an Anyones track. Amidst the lesser known numbers, the shoegazer gold of Each Time You Smile always makes me wonder why Sounds Like Sunset did not ever achieve the public acclaim they deserved. And the raucous rock and infectious melody of the John Reed Club's Destroyer demonstrates that their place on the roster was more down to more than just having a band member who was one of the label's founders.

Ivy League have achieved so much in ten years (aptly proved by this compilation), and I can't wait to see where they go from here.

Scott Berry