And So I Watch You From Afar - All Hail Bright Futures

I wrote about ASIWYFA's second album, Gangs, a few years ago. I'd not long seen them for the first time and they'd blown me away live. A short while later they released All Hail Bright Futures and I picked a copy up in Banquet after a period of not buying many records. Gangs introduced the idea of the songs having vocals in a very simple way (no actual words), so it wasn't too surprising to hear vocals at the start of All Hail Bright Futures - the line "The sun is in our eyes" repeated throughout Eunoia and Big Things Do Remarkable; it worked.

The surprise for me was quite how many of the songs on All Hail Bright Futures would use vocals - Like a Mouse, Ambulance, The Stay Golden, Ka Ba Ta Bo Da Ka and Young Brave Minds (it's almost easier to count the songs without lyrics, which is a strange thing to say for an instrumental band). It mostly works - they tread that fine line between using some vocals but not too many fairly well. but fall off a couple of times. It doesn't work for me on Ambulance where the band simply spell out the word "ambulance" over and over again. I'm mostly on-board with their style of math-rock, but that songs always feels like they're spelling a word to music simply for the fact that seems like a math-rock thing to do. The trumpet is a nice touch though. Ka Ba Ta... suffers a similar problem, but is more forgettable.

In the years that have followed buying this album, I have tended to go to Gangs when I want to listen to the band. I like All Hail Bright Futures, but the vocals are thing thing that tends to put me off; it's proof you can't please everyone - I got so excited at the hint of vocals on Gangs, but this amount is too much for me! I think if I had the two albums on shuffle that'd be the right balance, although you'd have to group the parts of The Golden Stay together.

I've since seen ASIWYFA a couple more time and they never fail to impress live. At ArcTanGent this year they should have been the headliner on the Saturday night - I think everyone there would have happily watched them for twice as long and well into the night. Much like the first and subsequent times I saw them, they brought the party.

Format: 12", picture sleeve
Tracks: 12
Cost: £15 new
Bought: Banquet Records
When: 18/07/13
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: Download code

Against Me! - Transgender Dysphoria Blues

I read an interesting article on Vice magazine's website a while ago written by that guy who does all their music stuff . The short version was that he was a fan of Against Me! early on and really loved what they were doing, then the music kinda drifted away and he felt less attached to them. Then Tom Gabel became Laura Jane Grace, the band released this album and they started meaning something again, but now to a different crowd - they were an icon for an LGBT crowd rather than just a punk crowd. The writer felt pleased that they meant something to people again, even if it wasn't the same thing they meant to him back in the day.

I was introduced to Against Me! on their first album and loved it. I got different amounts of enjoyment out of the albums that followed, but the trajectory was a negative one and I feel very little attachment to White Crosses. I still enjoyed seeing the band live but wished I enjoyed their newer stuff as much as their first two albums. When I heard the news about Tom becoming Laura I wondered what effect it would have on the band; despite my indifference to their last album at the time, I was hoping they'd continue.

I didn't buy Transgender Dysphoria Blues when it came out - song titles like Osama Bin Laden as the Crucified Devil and Fuckmylife666 definitely put me off; I couldn't help but think they weren't the titles of Against Me! songs I'd enjoy. Early in 2015 I met up with my friend Sarah in Kingston and we went to Banquet (because I can't go to Kingston during the day and not visit Banquet). I mentioned that I still didn't have a copy and she insisted on buying me one as a belated Christmas present; I obliged.

I enjoyed the album much more than I thought I would. By far the most striking thing about it is how intense and raw the lyrics are. I can only imagine these were songs that Laura Jane Grace had been wanting to write and sing for a long time. The opening duo are amongst the highlights for me, Drinking With the Jocks is one of the heaviest songs they've released and Black Me Out is an unexpected anthem. Even the two songs I mentioned above are far better than their dubious titles imply.

Throughout the whole album you're reminded just how honest the songs are and it's a wonderful thing to listen to. I never thought I'd say these words, but I agree with that writer in Vice magazine - Against Me! may not be the band they once were to me, but I love that they now mean so much to other people. I love that they can hold these songs as close to their hearts as I do with the first album.

Format: 12", gatefold sleeve
Tracks: 10
Cost: £0 new
Bought: Gift
When: 01/03/15
Colour: Blue and white splatter
Etching: none
mp3s: Download code

...And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead - IX

Back when I was 16, Trail of Dead were suddenly a very big name amongst people I knew. Source Tags and Codes had just come out and people were raving about it; I particularly remember Guy singing it's praises one day at college. I was familiar with Another Morning Stoner but didn't pick up a the album until four years later when I found a copy in a very metal record shop in Vienna. I'd seen them at Roskilde the summer before which I think put their name back in my mind. I remember there being countless band members on stage and enjoying it at the time.

I gradually bought their other albums that were out at the time - Worlds Apart in a very cool record shop in Auckland, So Divided in Resident Records in Brighton, Madonna in Damaged Records in Cardiff and the self-titled one in Kelly's Records. I have a strange relationship with their albums. I didn't get on board with the first two for years - so much so I think the first got relegated to being stored at my parents' house - but I quite enjoyed the two that followed Source Tags. I've read scathing reviews of those albums, but I enjoyed their pomp and grandeur. I can see if you were a fan of the early stuff you wouldn't want that from this band, but I thought it kinda worked.

I then kinda drifted away from the band for a while. I saw them at ATP and got another album but it didn't really click. Then I saw them with Rival Schools in London and I was blown away. They'd gone back down to just four members and barely played anything from those middle album - just early stuff and new stuff. It was incredible; less is more is certainly true for Trail of Dead. Since then I've become a huge fan of the first three albums and rarely listen to the middle ones (I still enjoy them but, like I said, that's not what I really want from this band). I try to see them whenever they play because they're just incredible to watch these days. In hindsight, that Roskilde set just seems so unexciting.

I bought IX in Banquet one day after this revelation. I've not been keeping up so much with their recent albums despite my love for their live show - not sure why. Anyway, I'd not seen their albums on vinyl very much so thought it'd be nice to get this one, and it was relatively well-priced. The Ghost Within and Lost in the Grand Scheme are the highlights on this album for me. Doomsday Book is a strange opener (it's strange that there isn't an instrumental build-up like almost all their other albums) and the way Conrad sings is very odd - the words seem to intentionally slur together. However, the brief transition into Jaded Apostles is lovely and the drums really dominate that songs. Lie Without a Liar has annoying chorus that isn't bad, but that dangerous combination of not good and impossible to get out of your head - I'll wake up in a few days time with that chorus in my head. It's not a strong starting album, but it gets going. The sticker on the front says "If you can't relate [to loss] then you aren't human and deserve to die", which is a tad strong perhaps.

Format: 12", gatefold sleeve, picture sleeves, cd
Tracks: 11
Cost: £16 new
Bought: Banquet Records
When: 26/10/14
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: cd included

Atmosphere - Godlovesugly

The first time I heard Atmosphere was in my friend Jon's car as we drove across the Severn Bridge. I can't remember where we were going mind you but it was definitely on the bridge as we crossed from Wales into England. I didn't know Jon very well at the time, but he was in a band with a friend and had an interesting taste in music - a mix of punk, 90's rock and hip-hop. I have no idea what Atmosphere songs we listened to, but I enjoyed the strange beats and intense rapping.

A short while later I found this second-hand triple-LP copy of Godlovesugly in Reckless Records in London and figured it was worth picking up - I hadn't seen any of their albums about and it was in pretty good condition and well-priced at £10.

My feelings about Atmosphere have been fairly consistent over the 8 years since I bought this album - I enjoy them but find them hard work. I bought a couple of other albums and found the same thing time and time again - each album has some incredible songs - here you have really great songs like The Bass and the Movement, Fuck You Lucy and One of a Kind which really stand out. On the other hand, there are some really cringe-worthy moments, especially around Slug's rather low opinion of himself (or, at least, his assumption of others' low opinion of him). And then there are just loads of other songs - this album has 18 songs, which is crazy long. I'm very familiar with the start of this album, but find I often can't make it through all six sides.

The highlights really are great - Fuck You Lucy is exactly what I want from these guys - the rapping is aggressive and interesting and they do that really well. If there was a best-of that contained just those songs I'd probably be all over that. As it is, I don't have the patience for the majority of their output a lot of the time.

Format: Triple 12", gatefold sleeve
Tracks: 10
Cost: £10 second hand
Bought: Reckless Records, London
When: 15/09/08
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: no

At the Drive-In - Acrobatic Tenement

Nearly three years passed between me hearing Relationship of Command and Acrobatic Tenement. I was a little late to the At the Drive-In party as it was, so finding any of their albums wasn't trivial. I bought them in an unusual order: Relationship of Command, In/Casino/Out, the best-of, Acrobatic Tenement and then finally Vaya a full three years after the first. As the albums got reissued on vinyl, this was the last one I picked up, for no other reason than I didn't see any copies of it around until I found this one in Rough Trade; I was pleased to finally have all their albums on vinyl.

I was familiar with Initiation from the best-of album (where it is strangely wedged at the end of the otherwise chronological album, between two covers) when I bought the album on cd (a £2 bargain from eBay); the rest was all new to me. The most defining feature of Acrobatic Tenement is its scrappiness - the albums that would follow had much higher production value and generally better musicianship too. But I love this album for its less-rounded edges - it adds a lot of charm. There's also a jazz influence that the later albums don't have (take the end of Paid Vacation Time for example). Given that some of the band members would dabble in a wide variety of influences later on in their careers, it's nice to hear those moments in their earlier days too.

The album is also a much more basic variation on post-hardcore than their later albums would be - the songs here sometime remind me more of Sparta than they do ATD-I. There are exciting moments throughout the album - Starslight, Initiation, Communication Drive-In and Porfirio Diaz all have huge choruses and the first two make use of multiple singers in ways they would never really do as well - the lyrics on Starslight are basically unintelligible and I love that about it.

Format: 12", picture sleeve
Tracks: 11
Cost: £14 new
Bought: Rough Trade East
When: 25/10/14
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: no

Audioslave - Audioslave

Can you remember the excitement around this album when it was announced? Good lord, it was crazy. Let's forget about how the album actually turned out for a moment and focus on that excitement. Rage Against the Machine had been the biggest name of the late 1990's and Soundgarden were one of the biggest names of the the early part of that decade. Chris Cornell had long been one of my favourite singers and still has one of the best voices in rock. The music Rage Against the Machine had put out was hugely important and I still get that same feeling when I listen to them now, more than 20 years after they started. How could a band consisting of Chris and Rage (minus Zach) not be great?

Before the album came out the video for Cochise did the rounds on MTV and it was awesome - the band playing on top of some structure in the desert with fireworks going of all around them. If the excitement levels weren't already raised high enough then that video pushed them even higher. I rushed out and bought the cd the day it came out. I was at college then so I used my free periods to go home, turn the hifi up dangerously loud and play the album. (I picked this copy up a few months later - I was still into it enough to spend £15.50 on it, which was a lot for an LP back then.)

It started with a great opening duo, the single Cochise and Show Me How to Live, which is still huge - the lines "Is this the cure or is this a disease?" is one of the greatest pre-chorus breaks that hard-rock did in the 2000's. There are some slower, heavier songs like What You Are which work well - think Mailman from Superunknown - and some slower ones like Like A Stone, Shadow on the Sun and I am the Highway which I think could have easily been culled. They're nice enough songs and show off Chris's voice well, but aren't what I (or most other listeners I suspect) were wanting to hear from this band. Had it been a Chris Cornell solo album then it would have been great (and would have shat all over his actual solo albums). There are late-album treats like Exploder and Light My Way but they often get forgotten in the expanse of the album.

My main complaints with the album was that it was far too long. It's funny, but as I've got older my"ideal album length" has changed. It used to be twelve songs in 45 minutes, but these days I'm finding the nine songs is strong length. Either way, 14 songs and an hour long is too much. As I've realised is often the case with super-groups (a term I don't think existed in my vocabulary in 2002) is that no one will tell them when to stop, or that maybe some of the songs aren't that great. The result tends to be album that are too long and don't really reflect any of the artist's best work.

Is Audioslave as good as Soundgarden? No, of course not. Some of the songs could make it into a top 20 Chris Cornell songs, but not the top ten. Is Audioslave as good as Rage? Again, not a chance. The musicianship is as good here, but it's more traditional hard-rock, which isn't what people listened to Rage for. The band are still tight as hell, but I don't think any of the guys really shine here (Tom gets some very short solos on What You Are and Bring 'em Back Alive).

I saw Audioslave at Roskilde Festival in 2005. I remember it fondly, although mainly because they played a bunch of Soundgarden and Rage songs. Chris even treated us to a solo performance of Black Hole Sun which was incredible. I hadn't seen Soundgarden at that point, so it was really special. Needless to say, his ability to rap like Zach de la Rocha was sub-par, but I'd seen Rage before so I'd already had my fix of hearing those songs how they're supposed to be played.

As is often the case with these blog posts, I've not listened to Audioslave for a long time before putting the needle on the record today. I'm surprised how well it stands up. I mean, I don't find myself wanting to listen to this sort of music much these days, but it's good. Plus, it's so deeply rooted in nostalgia (for itself but also for Soundgarden and Rage) and that early excitement it's had not to smile a little and have a little headbang.

Format: Double 12", gatefold sleeve, picture sleeves

Tracks: 14

Cost: £15.50 new

Bought: Selectadisc, Nottingham

When: 20/02/03

Colour: Black

Etching: none

mp3s: no