Time has proved that Ideas Above Our Station is the classic album we all thought it was back in 2002. 15 years later, I still get excited when I hear those guitars at the start of I'll Find You and the whole album is great. The singles were huge - we knew that before the album even came out - but the other songs are all excellent too. In 2012, it seemed the world agreed that it was a classic album, so the band toured playing it in full, and Banquet put together this lovingly-extended 10-year anniversary edition. Needless to say, I ordered it as soon as it was announced.
Five years ago, I wrote a blog post about the album, having bought a copy on vinyl in 2005 for an ridiculously-cheap £1. At the time, I was looking forward to seeing them play the album that summer, and I was lucky enough to see them play it again that December with Hell Is For Heroes playing their equally-classic album, The Neon Handshake. I had a great time at both shows (and realised that despite listening to both albums excessively over the previous 10-years, I had no idea what any of the words really were).
Various delays hit this release, and it eventually showed up in December 2013. I was more than happy to forgive Banquet for the delay as I was just very pleased to have all the extra songs. The album itself takes up the first disc, but then we are treated to two more LPs of other songs from that era. It was billed as being all the early songs, but Different, the song we all fell in love with a demo of, was missing (as well as EP One and some others from compilations and splits early in their career, so maybe it was more strictly "all the songs from that era"). The lack of Different aside, it is an excellent set of additional material, featuring early b-sides and demos. I wasn't at all of aware of their "Singles Club" releases back in the day, so I'd thoroughly missed out on those.
A few of these songs I already have on 7"s, most notably the incredible Remmus from EP Two and No. 5, a b-side to If I Could, and a song I've loved since seeing them play it in Southampton Guildhall many, many years ago. Because I only had those early singles on 7", I'd missed out on the extra b-sides in nearly every case (the exception being If I Could which I ended up with a copy of cd1 of through a strangely bad deal with Hugh - I'd bought a copy of Pitchshifter's newest single, Eight Days, for a surprisingly expensive £5 - he really wanted it, and I thought the b-side was a bit rubbish, so agreed to swap it for the If I Could cd single, effectively paying £5 for it. Neither were really worth £5, but I do love No. 5).
Remmus was such a huge song and such a success (at least in the circles I moved in) that it always seemed like a shame it wasn't on the album - they could easily have included it and no one would have complained (sometimes relying too heavily on early EPs is sign of a weak album, but that clearly isn't the case - in a lot of ways, it's a ballsy move to not include it). I played that 7" a lot back in the day, so those guitars at the start almost mean as much to me as the ones at the start of If I Could. The chorus was such good fun to throw yourself around to at their shows. Soap Box Rally was a huge song too. The original recording of Shine isn't hugely different to the version that ended up on the album, at least to my ears.
Check Before Leaving and Lamps Collapsing are from the Singles Club series and both are good - the first is strong with interesting guitars, and the second at the heavier end of HR, like EP One or some of the songs that would appear later on. Sunny and Slow Motion are from EP Three, the first of which I know well from the 7". Slow Motion would have made a fine album track.
If I Could had four b-sides across its three formats, and make up the rest of Side D. I've raved about No. 5 before; I still think it's a great song, and the most experimental thing they did. I love Hundred Reasons as a rock band, but I'd to have heard more of what they could have done if they'd experimented in more things like this. Given the situation they were in, I can see why it never happened, at least not on the albums. I didn't buy any of the versions of the Silver single, so all four of those b-sides were new to me here, although Aerogramme strikes me as familiar for some reason, and Rush In is possibly the closest to No. 5 in how it differs from a usual Hundred Reasons song; I like it.
Safe Distance was the only b-side from the Falter single I knew, as it was on the 7", however I was very familiar with Introduction to Pop from the electric version, re-titled Pop on Shatterproof Is Not A Challenge. I like this version a lot. Little Toys and Your Day are heavier songs, but in different ways to each other. The demos at the end are nice to hear. Usually reissues are littered with demos rather than actually different songs, but in this case I could have happily gone for some more demos too.
Anyway, that's a lot of words, but on a deserving album. The reissue is great, and the first run sold out, so I doubt I'm the only person who thinks that. The extra songs are all included on a cd too (assuming that anyone who bought the reissue already has the original album on cd, which I'm sure is the case, because I swear everyone owned a copy of this album).
Format: Triple 12", gatefold sleeve
Tracks: 30
Cost: £33 new
Bought: Banquet Records
When: 01/12/13
Colour: Silver, dark blue and blue
Etching: none
mp3s: cd included
