Against Me! - White People for Peace

This is a strange 7" for me, in that I like the b-side way more than the a-side. White People for Peace was the lead single to Against Me!'s fourth album New Wave (on white vinyl, naturally). I didn't end up buying New Wave in the end; I heard it a few times (my housemate Nicky was a huge fan) and it didn't do a great deal for me. I still love the Axl Rose and Eternal Cowboy albums, and the fifth album has its moments, but I just wasn't keen on New Wave. It probably didn't help that I wasn't blown away by the single from it.

The b-side Full Sesh, however, is a great song. I can't put my finger on what it is about it that I enjoy so much, but every time I play this single I come away with Full Sesh in my head, regardless of the order I played the songs. The verse are nicely sparse which makes the simple chorus soar even higher. Definitely worth a listen.


Format: 7"
Tracks: 2
Cost: £2 new
Bought: HMV Winchester
When: 02/07/07
Colour: White
Etching: none
mp3s: no

RVIVR - RVIVR

I started listening to RVIVR entirely because so many people I knew thought the album was incredible. I think end-of-year-list time had come around and I kept seeing this name (that I wasn't very sure how to pronounce - "Reviver" is how I eventually learnt to refer to them) in my friends' lists. One of them had thankfully put a link to a stream of the record on the label's website and I gave it a listen. I don't have a very good relationship with listening to music on the internet - basically, I'm not very good at it - so I tend not to. If I buy an album online and it comes with an instant download, I'm not very good at remembering that I can listen to it (I bought the new Arteries EP the other day and the mp3s remain zipped-up on my hard-drive). I'm equally bad at downloading mp3s that come with records I've bought in person, and even worse at updating the music on my mp3-player. I'm not doing particularly well with the digital age.

All this aside, I did play the RVIVR album a lot. I think knowing it was there (without having to dig through my surprisingly messy hard-drive) meant that whenever I was on the internet and not near my hifi I'd search RVIVR and give it a play. I particularly remember doing some maths in my garden on one of the first days of spring that year streaming this album. A few months later, on my first trip to Banquet since moving to Kingston, I found the album and bought it, along with the Caves LP. I already knew the songs, but it was nice to hear them played on a half-decent stereo, and the lyric sheet greatly improved my ability to sing-a-long (in as much as I knew the words, it didn't improve my singing voice).

I'm a big fan of RVIVR these days. There's an edge to their punk-rock that makes them stand out; incredibly raw yet somehow poppy. The combination of Matt and Erica's voices works brilliantly too. I saw them play The Fighting Cocks in Kingston just before my birthday that year, and again at Fest a few weeks later. Both shows made me like them even more and I've recommended the album to a bunch of people (directly and indirectly - a friend saw my t-shirt and decided he'd check them out. A few months later he told me how great he thought the album was. I never really realised up until then that, to a certain extent, I'm advertising a band when I wear their t-shirts. Still, since I got into the band through other people's recommendations, it's nice to know I'm paying the favour on). If I had to pick highlights on the album, I'd say Real Mean, Animal Hands and Cold in Your Bones but you'd be best off giving the whole album a play.

A few words certainly need to be said about the presentation of this album, because I like it a lot - the sleeve is an old record sleeve cut down the sides and turned inside out. You can see in the last picture below that mine was originally used to house an LP by Treepeople, who are a band I know nothing about other than that K Records put out their album (who in turn are a record label I know nothing about except what I read in Our Band Could Be Your Life). The RVIVR artwork is then printed on the other side in a fairly thick black ink. From what I can gather, this is the Rumbletowne Records version rather than the YoYo release. The Rumbletowne website jokes that they "spared no amount of extra effort", but given that there's a glossy printed inner sleeve, it seems that they'd already done half the job. Either way, it looks great. This girl I used to know in Australia had a 7" with a similar turned-inside-out sleeve and I remember thinking it was pretty cool. Pressing info seems slim on the ground, but it makes you wonder what sleeves other people have inside their RVIVR LPs.


Format: 12", discarded LP sleeve turned-inside-out, picture sleeve
Tracks: 12
Cost: £11 new
Bought: Banquet Records
When: 11/08/11
Colour: Black
Etching: Side A: "Future man" Side B: "That's what I said"
mp3s: no

Deftones - Minerva

I saw Deftones on Wednesday and they were ace, as they always are. I've lost count how many times I've seen them play now (in Brixton Academy alone!) and I love that I get to see one of my favourite bands so often. I'll save my gripes about the sound in the Academy for another time, because it's much more fun to write about how great Deftones are. On top of that, I get the impression they're really nice guys; I'd love to sit down and chat about metal with Stephen and convince Sergio that Quicksand should play the UK again. They could invite Jonah too, because they're all good friends and Jonah's a nice guy. But that strange fantasy aside, I should write a little about this record. For some lengthier thoughts about the band, there's a post I wrote about the White Pony double vinyl here.

I picked up the Minerva 7" (and the cd) the morning the single came out shortly before the end of college and my A-level exams. A week later the self-titled album came out and I eagerly picked up that too. I remember having a few free periods on a Monday afternoon, so I went home, played the album very loudly and returned to college for my later classes. I enjoyed it but over the years it hasn't stood up against White Pony.

I'm pretty sure the video for Minerva had been on heavy rotation for weeks on MTV so I already knew it well. It was an instant classic Deftones song - the gentle start into the crushing guitars and Chino's floating vocal. The b-side, Sinatra, is a Helmet cover that made it onto the B-Sides and Rarities album. Helmet are a band I simply haven't got round to getting into yet. I'm pretty sure I'll enjoy them simply based on the bands who consider them an influence. Maybe that can be a goal for the year: get into Helmet. Anyway, it's a nice song (a great bass line and done in Deftones heavy-yet-quiet style), but doesn't make the 7" an essential purchase. Still, for £1 you can hardly complain - 2003 was definitely in that golden era when 7"s were a great bargain.


Format: 7"
Tracks: 2
Cost: £1 new
Bought: HMV Winchester
When: 12/05/03
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: no

The Underground Railroad to Candyland - Bird Roughs

This is a nice enough record by a band I know practically nothing about. I'd never heard of The Underground Railroad to Candyland until I went to Fest in 2011 (a brief bit of Googling tells me that the band is related to Toys That Kill, who are a band I've heard of but I'm not sure why, but that's about it). By the Sunday night we were knackered and pretty much punked-out. After watching Dikembe, Failures' Union and Restorations in Looseys' we decided to head home, but on the way back to the hotel we walked past 8 Seconds and there seemed to be a huge party going on inside. The usual queues had long died down so we headed in and caught the end of The Underground Railroad to Candyland's set. I can't quite describe the scene on stage because there was so much to take in. It was like the end of The Shining but without the blood gushing out of the elevators, or at least that's how I remembered it. And I mean that in a good way. The atmosphere was incredible, everyone seemed to be having a great time (the guys from The Arteries were stood just behind us having a ball too) and it seemed like the perfect way to end Fest. I wish I'd known in advance so not to turn up quite so tired.

After that the name stayed on my mind but not strongly enough for me to actually check them out. At a gig sometime last year Sarah found their second album Know Your Sins in the Yo-Yo Records distro that Jan had brought along (I forget who we were watching but it was definitely in The Peel. Lemuria maybe?). I think she had been even more impressed by the set we saw at Fest than I was (she was definitely less tired somehow) so she was very eager to check them out and enjoyed the album. A few months after this I was in Cardiff and went to Ghost Town Records for the first time - Welly from Damaged Records new shop in the "Fashion Quarter" (if you're in Cardiff, I recommend checking it out) and stumbled across the debut album in the second-hand section for £7.50. I decided to chance it, and picked up a couple of cds and a 7" too.

The music is pretty good, it's certainly as upbeat and poppy as I remember. I can definitely see how they'd get such a party going with songs like these. It's not a life-changing record, but it doesn't need to be; what it is is a good album if you want some lively pop-punk for half an hour. There's a strong theme of repetition in the lyrics, but it works well for them. Body of the Bird is the highlight for me but Square Ball and (I'm) Russian Roulette are close contenders.

Like I said, its a nice enough record, and I would definitely see The Underground Railroad to Candyland again if they played the UK.

Format: 12", 5" sleeve, 20x12" poster
Tracks: 12
Cost: £7.50 second hand
Bought: Ghost Town Records, Cardiff
When: 24/11/12
Colour: Transparent yellow
Etching: none
mp3s: no

The Blood Brothers - ...Burn, Piano Island, Burn

 
...Burn, Piano Island, Burn was the album that transformed The Blood Brothers from an obscure spazz-rock band to spazz-rock band that people had actually heard of, which is quite the leap in the spazz-rock world I suppose. At least that's how it was for me; before this record came out I'd never heard of the band, and I suspect a lot of people who eventually bought it hadn't either.

Some time around the release the band played a Radio One session for Mary Ann Hobbs' Rock Show which was the first time their name and their music met my ears. The Rock Show was on between midnight and 2am on a Tuesday night and I'd stay up late recording it onto MiniDisc, noting which songs I liked and later editing the MiniDisc. Only ten years have passed since then, but it already seems a thoroughly ridiculous procedure - the internet wasn't yet the thing it is today, so I assure the younger readers that this was necessary to get new music (the even-younger readers, if any, may want to Google what MiniDiscs are). Anyway, their session was great and included a cover of Queen and Bowie's Under Pressure, which really sealed the deal for me (their version was a high-speed noise that broke briefly for the famous bass line, only to return to high-speed noise again. It was great). My MiniDisc player has long given up the ghost, but luckily I also at some point recorded the Blood Brothers session onto cassette which I re-discovered after playing all my old tapes in my car. The session is still cracking.

Sometime after this, I was in London with Hugh to see Killswitch Engage and Poison the Well in the LA2 (or the Mean Fiddler, or whatever it was called at that point. R.I.P. either way). I wasn't much into Killswitch but a fan of Poison the Well, and we decided to do a little record shopping beforehand and stash our records in the cloakroom. I picked up this LP in Selectadisc (now Sister Ray) and a couple of other records in one of the second hand shops on Berwick Street. Looking at the information on Deadformat I must be one of the few people in the world who doesn't have this record on an exciting colour vinyl (note that this release isn't listed - the black US first pressing has a different colour label). Still, the gatefold is nice, and there's a booklet of lyrics in case you want to scream along with the band.

It's a good album, but I also enjoy the two that followed it. I never picked up the first two albums, but do have a copy of the Rumors Laid Waste 10" and Jungle Rules DVD. Across all of those, I think Piano Island has my favourite songs on, and the highlight for me is the dark and quite messed-up The Salesman, Denver Max. I remember looking through the lyrics on the train home after the gig and wondering what I'd got myself into. Guitarmy is a brilliant opener and Fucking's Greatest Hits, Every Breath is a Bomb and The Shame are all excellent too.

I never got to see The Blood Brothers live (they played Reading Festival the one year I missed in 11 years) and I'm still a bit gutted about that. The footage on the DVD suggests I missed quite the show.


Format: 12", gatefold sleeve, 7"x5.5" booklet
Tracks: 12
Cost: £12 new
Bought: Selectadisc, London
When: 09/04/03
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: no

At the Drive-In - Relationship of Command

Relationship of Command is one of my all-time favourite records. I'm talking top-5 here, possibly even top-3 depending on how I'm feeling that day. From the second those pounding drums start at the beginning of Arcarsenal I know I'm going to spend the next 40 minutes smiling, foot-tapping and air-drumming away. I love it.

The first time the name At the Drive-In registered on my conscience was on a free cd on the cover of Kerrang! magazine - The Devil's Music Volume 2. The first volume in this series had been pretty influential for my friends and me (introducing us to Glassjaw, Pitchshifter, One Minute Silence and a whole load of other bands that we spent years listening to), and the second one had a couple of gems, albeit mostly songs by bands that we'd soon be embarrassed to say we liked. The two exceptions to this were Cosmonaut by At the Drive-In and Tension Head by Queens of the Stone Age (which remains to be my favourite QOTSA song). I got the cd just before a family holiday to France and spent many hours in the car with my sister's Walkman listening to those two in particular.

Somehow four whole years passed before I got a copy of Relationship of Command. I certainly heard the album more than once in that time, and even had tickets to see them on a tour that eventually never happened (they were due to play the Pyramids Center in Portsmouth on the evening of my last GCSE - IT, I think - but cancelled and broke up. Needless to say, I was pretty gutted but the show in London last summer pretty much made up for it). Anyway, Christmas 2004 my sister bought me the Fearless Records cd-reissue of Relationship (with the bonus track Extracurricular) and it quickly became a favourite of mine. I think I asked for a copy from her as a present having been reminded how much I liked them on the live Jools Holland dvd - my friend Matt had a copy and their performance of One Armed Scissor was incredible.

A year and a half later I moved to Australia for a year and my first task upon arriving in Canberra was to scope out the local record shops. Canberra had a couple - the national chain JB-Hifi and an independent (excellently) named Land Speed Records. In my first few weeks I bought a bunch of cds and one LP - this copy of Relationship of Command. The selection of vinyl in both shops was pretty impressive, but even still I was surprised to see a copy of Relationship given that the original cd had long gone out of print. At AU$18, it seemed a bit pricey, but it £'s it was a bargain (the exchange rate made things seem really expensive, which was good at stopping me from buying things unless I really wanted them). I didn't have a record player for the first few months, so it just looked pretty on my shelf while I listened to the mp3s.

So, what's to say about the album itself? It's incredible and I can't think of a post-hardcore album that comes anyway near close to it. All of the songs are great (One Armed Scissor, Invalid Letter Dept. and Cosmonaut being particular highlights) and the whole record is littered with these fantastic little moments, like the drums I mentioned on Arcarsenal, the handclaps on Enfilade or the raspy vocals on Quarantined. One of the things I always loved was that despite the huge songs along the way, I was always left with the closer Catacombs in my head and I'd be singing the huge chorus to myself for days. A lot of records don't end well, but this one saves a punch for last. The energy of the music is unstoppable and it still sounds to me as exciting as it did all those years ago, despite being nearly a teenager itself.

I got into At the Drive-in slowly over the years that followed that Christmas, picking up the other albums as and when I found them. The whole back-catalogue is being re-printed it seems, allowing me to get Vaya and In/Casino/Out on vinyl (a post on the latter in due course). Acrobatic Tenement and Relationship reissues are due out this spring apparently and I'll definitely be picking up a copy of the former. Musically, I enjoyed the other albums and they had some excellent songs but, for me at least, it's all about Relationship of Command.


Format: 12", picture sleeve
Tracks: 12
Cost: £7.61 new
Bought: JB-Hifi, Canberra
When: 16/07/05
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: no