Recently, I wrote about how Masters At Work have made a comeback. Masters At Work Records has been relaunched, with most of the label’s archive now online. Certain releases are missing, presumably due to the rights no longer being held.

I also wrote that you’d have to wait until the Six On Saturday column to find out what I thought of new single “Mattel”. Unfortunately, it came out on the one weekend where the column was taking a break due to Easter. So rather than make you wait until this weekend, I thought I’d post it now!

So, here goes. In the usual Six On Saturday style…

Masters At Work – Mattel (MAW Records)
I was looking forward to hearing this one. Back in the day, Masters At Work was one of those names whom you always felt compelled to check, no matter what they were releasing. So when I heard that they were coming back and with new music, I was fairly excited.

Frankly, I need not have been. This is easily one of the most dull, overhyped forgettable records I’ve heard in a long time. The many influences of Masters At Work tracks and remixes many years ago seem to be curiously absent here. The record starts off well enough, but not much seems to happen during the 8 incredibly long minutes it plays for.

It’s no exaggeration to say that I found this release incredibly disappointing. Who are they trying to appeal to with this record? Their fans from the 90s won’t like it because it sounds like literally nothing else they’ve done. And Vega and Gonzalez’s fans now won’t like it either. It sounds like nothing they do now.

Forget the alternative mixes as well – they somehow manage to be even more boring than the original.

We are promised more singles from the duo soon. Let’s hope that the follow-up is better than this – otherwise, we’ll all know that this comeback is about nothing more than a cynical attempt to cash in.

The regular Six On Saturday column returns this weekend.