Various Artists - Four By Four More EP

Any romantic music fan would love the idea of a bedroom-operation label like Broken Tail Records striking gold with some inspired band-spotting, to make all the time and effort pay off for the obsessives that run it. As admirable as the endeavour may be, on the evidence of the 2008 edition of their Four By Four More EPs, Broken Tail need to return to the river and get panning again. To The Barricades and Tripwires are conservative indie-rock banalities, but credit to the former for the astute lyric "we're wasting your hours away," even if they do mean it sarcastically. Ben Marwood is a competent singer-songwriter, and Project A-Ko are passable summarisers of mid-'90s US alt.rock, but what makes them glisten among the grey stones of unsigned hobby bands is a mystery. Four By Four More adds numbers to the indie-sphere, but little quality. [Ally Brown]