’m not going to front: The biggest selling point of Grace Records’ recently-released compilation of their first five singles is the fact that it’ll come to you with a return address somewhere in the UK. Despite the inarguable downturn in the quality of British indie music in recent years (Forward Russia? seriously?), indulging one’s musical pioneer spirit can, to some sad-sack Anglophiles like myself, be an impossibly alluring prospect, particularly when the product in question exists to imbue you with the feeling that you’ve gotten in on the ground floor of something. It’s just too bad when the product isn’t any good.

Admittedly, this is a slightly harsh criticism to levy against a label’s ostensible baby steps, especially since each single Grace has put out since their first five have been forward leaps of Mao-esque proportions. Their Lamacq-endorsed flagship band, Fury of the Headteachers, for instance, closed out last year by releasing “Farewell Comrade,” a Magazine rip-off of substantially more compelling caliber than their Christ-punchingly awful band name might lead you to believe. Unfortunately, anyone looking to illuminate their understanding of the band won’t be well-served by investigating their past: the quality of “Farewell Comrade” only serves to call the progress they’ve made since their (and Grace’s) debut single “Fables” into high relief.

And “Fables” is one of the highlights on The First Five Singles; at least it sounds like it wants to be treated like product. Most of Singles sounds much closer to unfinished ideas. It’s really not even a matter of the stripped-down production aesthetic (assuming for a moment that we’re dealing with finished productions rather than demos, a rather bold leap of faith); I literally can’t imagine why anyone would want to pay money for a song like Orphan Boy’s “Billy’s England,” packed full of unpalatably sudden tempo shifts and overburdened with torturous and tepid imagery (“sipping brandy in a teacup through a straw” being the main offender, but God is it one of many). And yet Grace saw fit to make “Billy’s England” the third song on which they put their stamp.

The rest of The First Five Singles doesn’t even deserve fairness; none of the three other a-sides or five b-sides manages to get beyond “Hey, this is loud and angular,” so I see no reason to devote any energy to painting a picture of them doing anything else. They merely exist, which, I suppose, is a good enough metaphor for this compilation itself. Maybe someday Grace will emerge as a spikier, angrier Postcard, in which case The First Five Singles might provide some illuminating context in which to view their origins. As it stands now, however, this compilation is wholly unnecessary; it can’t be hard to find bands this inessential without having to send away for them.