At the Drive-In - In-ter A-li-a

There are a lot of interesting questions you can ask yourself when it comes to the new At the Drive-In record. Questions like: if you didn't know it was by ATDI but someone had said "if you like ATDI, you might enjoy this album", would I have still been interested? I'd definitely have marked them down for that artwork and font. I might have been into it after pressing play - the opener, No Wolf Like the Present, is one of the strongest on the album and might have drawn me in; it is very At the Drive-In-esque. Would I have spent £22 on it based on that alone? Almost certainly not.

Of course, all these questions are irrelevant, because it is an ATDI record, so I was going to buy it pretty much regardless. After seeing them on their first tour after reforming, I was amazed that they decided to stay together long enough to write another album - at points in the show Omar Rodriguez Lopez looked like he might not even make it to the end of the set. And like all reformations, you do wonder if it's truly necessary to write another album. There are some great moments here - Call Broken Arrow has a really, really good chorus. It's the sort of chorus that makes you think "yeah, this could have worked". Governed by Contagion is the other highlight - if they played it live you'd say "yeah, this isa good song" before really thinking which album it came from. The rest really struggle to stand out in any notable way. Ghost-Tape No. 9 sounds like a Mars Volta b-side.

All in all, not terrible but by no means essential.

Format: Gatefold 12", picture sleeve

Tracks: 11

Cost: £22 new

Bought: Truck Store

When: 10/05/17

Colour: Half black with pink splatter, half pink

Etching: Side A: "In defence of the hero the sermon on the mount will be" Side B: "Administered intravenously by a state appointed therapist" 

mp3s: download code

Far - Water & Solutions: What Happened

This has taken forever to write about. On the vinyl, there are ten songs; nothing unusual about that. But accompanying this particular release is a USB stick containing nearly 4 hours of demos and out-takes from pretty much the entire history of the band. It is a lot to take in.

That said, the five unreleased songs on the vinyl (the other five are demos of songs from Water & Solutions) are probably the highlight of the lot. I remember putting the needle on the record the first time and thinking they were arguably late-additions to the album of the year list that year (the record arrived in December). The first four are all fantastic - Mantra and Sawed Off are both heavy-Far, something they did very well. The second has hints of doom-Far, which is all over the third song, Really Last, a song that would have worked brilliantly on Tin Cans With Strings to You. Accompanying the 52 songs is a zine with notes from Jonah about every single track - in it he says that Kisses From Magdalene was a hit in his brain, but not in reality, but I'd say it was a hit in reality too (later we're treated to another less polished demo) - the chorus is huge. Where Are You Now is the least exciting of the lot but still nice enough. Also would have worked well on Tin Cans, but not in place of any of the slower songs on there.

Controversially (to no one, I'm sure), I'm going to rattle off my thoughts on the other unreleased/non-album songs included first. If I had one criticism of this huge collection of songs, it'd be that it's lacking a coherent order, at least one that is apparent to me. As someone who likes order, I made playlists of the songs on the USB stick and arranged them by album. It was only then that it was really obvious that included were demos for the whole of Water & Solutions, most of Tin Cans and Quick, as well as a bunch of other great songs and some covers. The record and, indeed, the Kickstarter was billed as being a 20th anniversary release for Water & Solutions, but the scope clearly ended up being well beyond that.

Amongst the other songs that didn't make it onto the album are some gems. Jonah notes that Nine Miles has some Drive Like Jehu vibes, which I can see. A second version features Grady from Will Haven, which is even better. Probably the surprise of the lot is Heather's Homework, a song which sounds like it's going to be a Jonah-dicking-around-song from the title, but is actually a crushing, heavy industrial beast of a song. It's probably the heaviest Far song I've ever heard. Jonah's vocals are great, particularly when screaming "I am calling". If there's one thing these songs really show, it's how great Jonah's vocals were when they were rough and raw in the demos - somehow varying between gruff-punk and metal-screams. There are two versions of a song called Tides but neither really do it for me; I'm Gone sounds different in a way that I couldn't put my finger on, until I saw that it was from the At Night We Live sessions; it's essentially a very polished rock song, which is why it doesn't sound very "Far". Bingo is a 9-minute long instrumental jam that has its moments but ultimately doesn't justify its length. The messing around with the tape buttons at the end ruins it. There's also The E-Bomb Snippets, which is nothing but a fascinating glimpse into how things were done when the internet was still in its infancy.

There are a handful of covers included. I've never really listened to PJ Harvey or 7 Seconds, so I have no idea how Long Snake Moan and Satyagraha compare to their originals, but the chorus to the former is great (having heard Kevin Seconds voice on this record, I'm probably not going to bother with 7 Seconds). I was excited to hear their cover of Monkey Gone to Heaven but that was, surprisingly, the worst song here I think. I always thought "no one can do that song badly", but it turned out I was wrong - the best bits are all messed about with (in a bad way) and the highlight of the song - where Frank sings about the devil being six - is painful to hear. Also included is the semi-famous Sacramento-bands cover of Do They Know it's Christmas. I had an mp3 of this from the old days of file sharing and never really knew how legit it was. It's nice to finally have a proper version of it. It sounds like they had a great time recording it. 

I'm going to work through the rest chronologically by album, because that's clearly the right order. I've still not got a copy of their second album, Quick. This is mostly because I have a copy of their first album, Listening Game, and it's either the work of a band trying to find their sound, or terrible, depending on how generous I'm feeling (usually the latter). However, based on these songs, I should get a copy. Both versions of Man o' the Year are better than anything on Listening Game by a good distance. Less is very heavy, probably the heaviest they ever sounded whilst still sounding like themselves. Again, Jonah's vocals at the end are incredible. I didn't realise Girl was on both Quick and Tin Cans until I looked up the tracklisting on Discogs (this is a nice acoustic version). The Ballad of Simon & Constance is nice and All Go Down has some lovely warm strings in the chorus and a great melody too, but does drag on too long. Sister is a bit of a slow dirge though (not in the good way), but again Jonah cracks out some nice vocals at the end.

As I've said many times before (and to anyone who'll listen), Tin Cans With Strings to You is my favourite Far album and I was genuinely shocked to find that the general consensus was that Water & Solutions was the highlight. We get treated to demos of about half the songs here, which is nice. I never thought I'd say that a song from Tin Cans was too slow, but that is the case with the demo of In the Aisle, Yelling (great title). The chorus does sound amazing. Job's Eyes and Punchdrunk are both even slower somehow and sound brilliant - the former has these crunching heavy guitars that make you realise how easily the band could have been Helmet if they'd wanted to be. Punchdrunk, despite sounding like it was recorded underwater, shows how tiny little changes in the mixing can have such a huge effect on a song - there's a little bass line just before the chorus in the final version that really makes the song, but here it's low in the mix and not the focus, which is a shame. Whoever decided to bring that to the top of the mix made a great call. Boring Life is painfully quiet and it's a shame that there's no demo of Joining the Circus - one of my favourite memories of seeing Jonah live (of which, there are many) was seeing him play that song upstairs in the Garage; I could listen to that song for days. We do, however, get three versions of Sorrow's End which is a lot for a song I wouldn't have been able to tell you much about in particular before writing this. The loud version is a great example of how different a song can be, at least musically - Jonah's fucked-with vocals are totally wrong for the speed and volume - it needs a crystal clear singalong, not echoey whispers. It could be a great punk-rock song, but isn't here.

Water & Solutions is, as expected, the star of the show, with demos of all the songs, five of which made it onto the vinyl (that I've barely mentioned in countless paragraphs). There's an interesting mixture of results - Really Here sounds like it was recorded super-early on and Jonah hasn't entirely figured out or committed to the vocal delivery; the title track sounds amazing but like it probably hurt to sing; Nestle has a hint of a 60's style to it but is also way fuzzier, which is a strange combination. There are three versions of Mother Mary, the first of which sounds bare in the chorus, but I couldn't tell you exactly what was missing. We're also treated to an acoustic version from the Daytrotter Sessions, which I've had mp3s of for a long time - it's lovely, but that should come as no surprise - Jonah has played that song a lot in the years between. Bury White is also from that recording and sounds great too.

Finally, we come to At Night We Live, from which we have three songs, two from the Daytrotter Session - the title track and The Ghost That Kept on Haunting. I quite enjoyed the album and enjoy these versions too. The "ambient mix" of the the title track is interesting, but not as good by a long way. An interesting experiment if nothing else.

And that brings us to the end of the nearly-4-hours of music here. With international postage, this wasn't a cheap purchase (£47.25, all in) but there's no way you could say there isn't value there. I don't think any Far fan could really ask for more. And there are nice little touches beyond the vast, vast quantity of music too - the zine is signed by Jonah and each sleeve is numbered (mine is #10, surely a reflection of random ordering rather than numbering by order date, because I don't think I paid into the Kickstarter straight away). The last page of the zine lists the names of all the people who contributed and my name is there if you look very closely. I don't engage in Kickstarters as often as I probably should, but I'm very glad I did in this case. You never really know how these things are going to turn out, but Jonah has done his fair share, so knows what people want. And, this package suggests, that what people want is crazy amounts of music.

Format: Gatefold 12", zine, USB drive

Tracks: 52

Cost: £47.25 new

Bought: Kickstarter

When: 08/12/18

Colour: Blue

Etching: None

mp3s: USB drive

Bear Vs. Shark - Right Now / Terrorhawk

I love both these albums and I listen to them a lot. I found an unmarked cdr in the car a while back that had both of these albums on back-to-back - I have no memory of burning that cd or even thinking that I should do, but I evidently did and I'm very pleased that I did; every time I see it and think "what's on that unmarked cd", I smile when it starts to play.

For a long time, and partly because of that cd, I couldn't really distinguish between the two albums (maybe it's just because I've not been driving so much recently, I couldn't even tell you which is first on there). I don't mean that to be a bad thing - both are incredible albums, truly unique together - by which I mean I have nothing else that sounds like this, which itself is a shame. A lot of bands can only strive to write two excellent albums then break up.

It strikes me as strange that I can't tell them apart better, especially considering that I bought Right Now You're in the Best of Hands back in 2012, and a full three years passed before I finally got Terrorhawk. I got the reissue of Right Now that Big Scary Monsters put out and eventually loved it - it was a bit of a slow-burn at first, because I don't think I was listening to it loud enough. I remember thinking that it'd be nice to have Terrorhawk on vinyl too, but didn't fancy paying the second-hand prices it was going for; in the end I decided I'd be happy enough to just have it on cd, and then picked up a copy for very little on eBay (during a short-lived period of buying very cheap second cds on there). I paid £1.83 for it, a bargain for sure. (I think sometime between those two events, I found a cheap copy of Right Now on cd in San Francisco, but gave it to my friend Sarah after copying the mp3s - she described it as sounding "like Hundred Reasons", a comment I still think a lot about - what was she hearing?)

A while later the two albums got re-issued together as a double vinyl, and I ended up picking one up from Specialist Subject. The last year I subscribed to their year-long subscription they ended up releasing fewer records than expected, so gave everyone a voucher at the end of the year. I'd already decided against renewing for the next year (breaking a very long run of subscriptions) as they were drifting further away from the music I was into (or I was drifting further away from the music they were releasing), so I put it towards this pair of albums. I hadn't even noticed they'd had it stock before that point. There are more interesting colours out there, but this is just the plain black version. To add to my confusion between the albums, the sleeve lists Right Now as LP01 and Terrorhawk as LP02, but Right Now plays on sides C and D, and Terrorhawk on sides A and B (the matrix numbers suggest that the labels aren't wrong too). I began making notes about the wrong album when I first started writing this.

However, I have now firmly come to the conclusion that Terrorhawk is my favourite - over those 15 songs there are so many huge, huge moments and brilliant songs. They manage to write incredible fast songs (like 5, 6 Kids) and equally incredible slow songs (like Song About Old Roller Coaster), which is quite a skill. But the real gem of Terrorhawk is the pairing of The Great Dinosaurs With Fifties Section and Baranga Embankment on the first side - the former starts off so strongly and builds to a truly mammoth ending, and the latter brings in horns and keys perfectly and is so wonderfully slow. When those two hit, I always think "yeah, this is my favourite of the two".

But Right Now can't be faulted - Ma Jolie has one of those rare moments you can actually sing along to, and I love the "yo yo yo" breakdown in The Employees. The lines "Pull yourself out of the gutter, motherfucker" in Broken Dog Leg are another great moment. This pressing doesn't have the bonus tracks that a lot of others include - to be honest, I'd forgotten my BSM-reissue did have the extra songs.

Format: Double 12"

Tracks: 27

Cost: £29.75 new

Bought: Specialist Subject Records website

When: 21/11/18

Colour: Black

Etching: none

mp3s: no

Max Richter - Nosedive

I've been trying to stop buying so many of Max Richter's soundtracks, not because they're not nice - they almost always are - but more because he releases them at such a pace I can't keep up (not just in effort, but also financially). However, this one was an immediate purchase.

Max Richter provided the soundtrack to the first episode of the third season of Black Mirror, a show I'd been watching from the start (having been a fan of Charlie Brooker's work for many years). The third series saw the show move from Channel 4 to Netflix, and with that came a huge increase in production values, and that first episode, Nosedive, was possibly the peak of that - Bryce Dallas Howard as the lead and Max Richter providing the soundtrack. If anything, I think the effect of all that gloss was a huge part of the plot - the shiny, perfect, Instagram-styled existence at the start had to be so, such that the fall the story brought felt even more dramatic. It was a great episode, and the soundtrack definitely added to that. I remember hoping it'd get pressed on vinyl, because I really enjoyed the pieces as the time.

In fact, I think it remains the only Max Richter soundtrack I own where I've actually seen the film it was written for, although that should be seen as more a reflection of how much television I get the time to watch these days (very little), which was another reason to buy it. As with a lot of soundtracks, there are few things you could call "songs" - over the 25-minutes, there's the 7-minute opener On Reflection which sets the scene at the start perfectly, the 4-minute The Journey, Not the Destination relying on some fast-paced electronics to soundtrack the demise, and the 5-minute The Consolation of Philosophy echoing the opener in a reflective way. The other four pieces are around the 2-minute mark and, whilst vital to feel of the episode, not very exciting as an album. But those three main pieces are all excellent, and not only do they provide a great example of what Max Richter does so well (merge classical music with electronics in very emotive ways), they also soundtrack the story arc brilliantly. If the three ran consecutively as one song, you could draw easy parallels between the structure of the song to early-Mogwai or Godspeed songs; I think that's the appeal of Max Richter's music to me - it's basically post-rock but played on entirely different instruments.

A strange note to end on, but I was very surprised when Max Richter's soundtrack to Nosedive wasn't the musical highlight of the series, however I'll save that for another time.

Format: 12", picture sleeve

Tracks: 7

Cost: £17 new

Bought: Bear Tree Records website

When: 09/04/18

Colour: Black

Etching: None

mp3s: Download code

Dälek - Asphalt for Eden

I've got a few Dälek albums and would definitely buy more if I ever saw them in shops. In fact, all four Dälek albums I have are because I stumbled across them in record shops, and every single time I've seen a Dälek record in a shop I've bought it, so I guess I'm doing a reasonable job. Despite it sitting fairly far from the usual fare that Truck Store in Oxford stock, they've had the last two Dälek albums in stock when they came out, and I bought both. This is the former of those two.

As I mentioned before, Dälek play a very distinctive style of hip-hop, one that I enjoy in a number of ways - it's very dark and often minimal, but shares ideas with post-rock in how a song should grow and subtly work to overcome you, rather than relying on verse-chorus-verse. The rapping is key, but mostly as an instrument more than as words - half the time you'd be pushed to pinpoint exactly what he's saying. Masked Laughter (Nothing's Left) is a highlight - musically it reminds me of some of the soundscapes that Frank Delgado adds to Deftones, and the rapping is at the exact right point in the mix - lower than the music, but still loud enough to do justify to the fact that MC Dälek is rapping with far more vigour than usual. It Just Is finishes the album with the same energy.

At seven songs and just under 40-minutes, it's a good deal shorter than Abandoned Language and Endangered Philosophies, but these days I'm increasingly thinking that 40-minutes is the right length for an album and, to be honest, the fewer songs in that time, the more likely they are to appeal to my post-rock leanings. I have no idea if they have one album that everyone agrees is their best, but if I was recommending Dälek to anyone, of the four records I know, this would be the starting point I'd suggest.

Format: 12", picture sleeve

Tracks: 7

Cost: £16 new

Bought: Truck Store, Oxford

When: 09/06/16

Colour: Black

Etching: none

mp3s: Download code

Art of Burning Water - Between Life and Nowhere

I never expected to enjoy Art of Burning Water's Love You Dead anywhere near as much as I did. In fact, it ended up being one of the best records I heard that year and so, when my brother text me asking if there was anything I wanted for Christmas, I sent him a link to this record which he kindly bought for me. It might be the least festive record I own.

I never quite got into this album as much as I did Love You Dead, I'm not sure why. There are certainly fewer doomier, sludgier moments here - Between Life and Nowhere has a lot more thrash and hardcore going on. At 20-minutes long, they don't leave themselves much time to do anything slower, although Voivodian Solutions to Die Kreuzian Problems does get a bit of a groove going towards the end, as does the follow-up, Alesha. I say that, but I can't say with any certainty which song is which, as they decided against putting any spaces in the grooves between tracks - something I can't decide is awesome or really annoying. I certainly think "that's badass" when I look at it, but curse them when trying to work out which song I'm listening to; the former happens more than the latter.

I still only own two AoBW records, but I'd definitely buy more if I ever saw them. I guess I'm just going to the wrong shops.

Format: 12", insert

Tracks: 10

Cost: free, new

Bought: Gift

When: 30/12/16

Colour: Black

Etching: none

mp3s: none

Nine Inch Nails - Broken

In a lot of ways, Broken represents exactly what I want (and wanted) from Nine Inch Nails. Despite that, I don't think any fan could say it was the band's "best" release – on paper, it's only six songs, and two of those don't really count, although the bonus tracks put it back up to six songs – but more importantly, how could it ever be fairly compared to the two giant albums that followed it? In any discography that contains The Downward Spiral and The Fragile, the odds are really stacked against every other recording.

But Broken is, for me, what Nine Inch Nails were always about – punishingly heavy industrial metal but with Trent Reznor's unique ability to somehow mix that with pop and give it a groove that you'd never normally hear alongside guitars. Happiness in Slavery is a perfect example of this, although also one of the sloppier combinations – the verses are brutal and the instrument break is pure noise, but the chorus could be a pop song in the way it's sung (if not in lyrical content). The back story to Broken was that Trent's anger at the label's handling of Pretty Hate Machine caused him to write these blistering songs, and if that's the case I'm kinda glad it all played out as it did; I like the songs on Pretty Hate Machine, but to me that album is the odd-one-out in the NIN back-catalogue – there are hints of industrial, but really there's a lot more 80’s goth and synth-rock going on. Who knows how Nine Inch Nails would sound now if they'd followed that trajectory! (The fact that this EP contains a secret Adam Ant cover is probably a clue.)

Of course, the order in which I got heard the NIN albums is probably why I'm not a PHM fan, and why I think Broken is such perfect NIN material – I got the albums in this order: Downward Spiral, The Fragile, Broken, All That Could Have Been and then Pretty Hate Machine – I'd heard epic-NIN, industrial-NIN and the industrial live versions of PHM songs on the live album before I'd heard that record; I love hearing those pop-moments soundtracked to savage guitar work and drums that are being beaten more than they’re being played (and a lot more than to a drum machine). Despite that, I never really got into industrial as a genre – I think the pop was part of the enjoyment, as much as it surprises me to say it. I know lots of people wouldn’t call NIN an industrial band, and that's fine, but to me they are and they're at their best when they commit fully to their version of it.

And that's exactly what they did on Broken. All four of the actual songs are brilliant (Gave Up and Wish particularly) and every time they're played live they go down amazingly well. It's impressive how many of their best songs came from a bitterly recorded EP. When With Teeth came out I remember describing it to a friend as being the closest thing they've done to a full length version of Broken, a comment based around the fact it was heavy but didn't have a narrative or concept - I'm not sure I agree with 20-year-old-me entirely, but I still love the relative simplicity of that album.

I first heard Broken in December 2001, just over a year after getting The Downward Spiral and a few months after getting The Fragile. I'd been to a record fair but found disappointingly few records I wanted, so picked Broken up in MVC for £6. They would have had that cd in stock every single time I'd ever been in there, but I guess I decided that was the day to finally get it. I was already a fan of the band, but those songs hit hard and made me a bigger fan. A few months later I rushed out to get the And All That Could Have Been double cd for an at-the-time expensive £17. When the band started reissuing their albums I figured it'd be nice to pick them, and gradually did so. After I'd seen the care and attention that'd gone into The Downward Spiral and The Fragile reissues (bought with my World Cup sweepstake winnings), I picked up Broken the very next time I went into the record shop. The package is lovely, in particular the scratched-out lyrics etched into the b-side, the 7" and the booklet. It' worth the money for the songs alone, but the details makes it even more enjoyable.

Format: One sided 12", 7", booklet

Tracks: 8

Cost: £22 new

Bought: Truck Store, Oxford

When: 31/08/18

Colour: Black

Etching: Lyrics etched into b-side

mp3s: Download code

Far - Water & Solutions

Whilst I've always been a Tin Cans man, I still have a lot of time for Water & Solutions and I get why people rate it so highly. It took me a long time to get there though - I got Water & Solutions only five months after getting Tin Cans With Strings To You, but I'd been sold on Tin Cans' slightly rougher edges and doomier moments. On top of that, I knew that Water & Solutions was the one that was meant to be the better one, so maybe I went in with higher expectations - I'd read (and still have somewhere) a Kerrang! article that listed Water & Solutions as the third best post-hardcore/emo album of all time, which is a pretty big claim (and a solid list to be in at all - I remember Fugazi's Repeater and At the Drive-In's Relationship of Command also being in the top ten, but not necessarily above Far).

People absolutely adore Mother Mary and I suspect it's the Far song that Jonah plays the most. It is an incredible song, there's no doubt about it. Do I love it more than Job's Eyes or Joining the Circus? No, but I'll agree that it probably is the better song in a traditional sense. The title-track is pretty great too - the whispers of "Soon, a light on" before the chorus is brilliant - you can imagine the comparisons to the Deftones that drew, despite musically being pretty far removed. Nestle and Wear It So Well are highlights too. Man Overboard is the only one that that has those same hints of doom and sludge that my favourite songs on Tin Cans have; it's the only one that would have comfortably fit on that album (it feels bad to constantly compare the album to its predecessor, but I'm not sure I've ever listened to it without thinking about how much I never got it as much as I did Tin Cans).

I saw Jonah play Water & Solutions in full in 2018 to celebrate its 20th anniversary. To play the shows, he toured the UK (and possibly Europe) with the band Witching Waves, which was unusual, but made for an interesting twist on the usual anniversary tour. I was lucky enough to see Far in 2008, so I didn't mind it not being a full-band thing. Given the history of the band, I'm not surprised they couldn't get back on the road together and I'd much rather watch one quarter of the band play these songs than not at all. Strangely, Jonah changed the tracklist entirely, playing the gentler songs first, before exploding into the heavier ones. I guess people don't write album tracklists and setlists in the same way at all - so few albums save the best song for last; it's a fundamental flaw in the whole "playing an album in full" tour idea. Ironically, Waiting for Sunday is a huge song (but not Mother Mary-huge).

Around the time that Tin Cans got reissued, they reissued Water & Solutions too. I had the chance to buy both at Fest, but opted for just Tin Cans because it was a few days before payday and I had to hold back a bit. I'd never really minded having just one in my collection, and I had the one I cared about the most. But over the years I did occasionally think it'd be nice to have both albums on vinyl. Last year at some point I read an email from Jonah that mentioned a new German reissue of Water & Solutions, so I immediately headed over to their site to pick up a copy. In the email Jonah said the last reissue sounded shitty, but this one he was on board with, so I figured it was worth picking up. It also came with a bonus flexi-7" which was a nice added bonus. Annoyingly, the coloured vinyl had sold out by this point, so I snapped up this black vinyl copy (more annoyingly, they did a second run on a different colour of vinyl, which is a pet-peeve of mine - first pressings on coloured and black vinyl then subsequent on coloured - means if you're a bit slow off the mark you get stuck with a boring colour of vinyl, but then you'd have been rewarded with a nicer colour for waiting. It happens far too often. I guess it helps sell records). It is a nice pressing, although the faded colour of the sleeve makes it look cheaper somehow - like a shitty photocopy, even though it's not. The 7" has a home demo of Mother Mary, which is nice, even if hearing Jonah play Far songs on his own is the norm rather than the exception these days. 

Format: 12", square 7" flexi disc, insert

Tracks: 13

Cost: £25.60 new

Bought: Thirty Something Records bandcamp

When: 11/12/19

Colour: Black, transparent blue

Etching: none

mp3s: Download code

Bars of Gold - Wheels

Bars of Gold released their second album, Wheels, a couple of years after I'd got into them. The song Coffee With Pele came out in the August and got me very excited; the album followed in October. I'd been meaning to buy their debut, Of Gold, for two whole years by that point and still hadn't managed to. I came very close once, but was worried they hadn't set up the international postage rates correctly, and felt bad that I might be screwing them over by making them pay the rest of the postage. Anyway, when Wheels came out, Of Gold had sold out on Bandcamp and I couldn't find anywhere to buy them both from at the same time to save on postage and customs fees. Six years later, these reissues came out, and were crippling expensive, but I'm just glad to finally have copies.

Coffee With Pele was a huge song to drop before the album came out - the shouts of "Howling like wolves" in the chorus are brilliant and exactly what I wanted from the band. But the great thing is that it's not even the best song on the album. Connected and Blue Lightning are probably the highlights though - the addition of some smooth backing vocals added a depth I wasn't expecting but was thoroughly into, and the chorus of the former is huge. On their third they stepped it up even further in terms of unexpected sounds for a punk band, but here it was a total surprise and I loved it then and now. Hey Kids starts the album off quite jangly and constantly feels on the brink of falling apart (but in a good way) and 22180 is another highlight.

As you can see in the pictures, the colour of this album is amazing; it's up there amongst some of my favourite looking vinyl. Splatter vinyl always looks great, but the choice of colours and the way the splatter doesn't reach the middle is just lovely to look at. 

Format: 12"

Tracks: 10

Cost: £33.74 new

Bought: Equal Vision website

When: 23/03/19

Colour: White with yellow, orange and green splatter

Etching: none

mp3s: none

Bars of Gold - Of Gold

I've written about how I got into Bars of Gold before, but only briefly because it was when I wrote about a Bear Vs Shark record (nearly 8!) years ago, but I'm going to tell the story again, because the song that got me into them is on this record and it remains a favourite.

In 2011 I went to Fest for the first time, and had a great time getting into as many obscure and new bands as I could. It was a life-changing trip, if only because I discovered bands that I'm still listening to today and became some of my favourites. Mostly that was through seeing the bands play various dive bars across Gainesville, but a sweaty evening spent in the 1984 bar resulted in a sampler cd for a record label called Friction Records. We'd gone because Caves were playing, and I love that band (and it was great to see them playing to such an eager crowd half way around the world). Also on the bill were Charles the Osprey and Shores. I loved Shores and their halfway-between-punk-and-Low sound, and bought two of their records - I was chatting to the guy at the merch stall who was strangely cagey about prices, but said I could have two for $15, which remains a bargain - I imagine they were $10 each, but the exchange rate at the time was ridiculous, so I was keen either way. Sarah really enjoyed Charles the Osprey and bought their album. We both got the free Friction Records sampler cd, which featured Charles the Osprey.

A few days later, Fest was done and we were driving back to Tampa for a few days before flying home (I still wish we'd taken a few more days and gone to Fun Fun Fun fest in Texas the next weekend - that was a killer line-up featuring three of my yet-to-see favourites: Hum, Murder City Devils and Snapcase. Really should have gone). We'd played most of the cds we'd packed driving about before the festival, so any we got at Fest got a play in the car. I remember putting on the Friction Records one because we wanted to remind ourselves what Charles the Osprey were like. I have no recollection of what any of the other songs sounded like, except for The Hustle by Bars of Gold which hit like a ton of bricks and had me amazed.

If you've somehow read three paragraphs of me waffling on without having listened to Bars of Gold, then put on The Hustle. I can begin to explain how unexpected and brilliant it was. Maybe four nights of mostly straight-forward punk-rock was a factor, but I was amazed by that song. I still remember vividly driving along thinking "fuck yes, this is incredible". I remember turning to Sarah to check that I wasn't the only one floored by it - she was enjoying it, but not to the extent I was. I'm not sure anyone would have enjoyed it as much as I was at that exact point. The banjo propels the song at a great pace and Marc Paffi's vocals are everything I want from a singer - unique, distinctive and emotive - plus, gang vocals in the chorus and clapping; who could ask for more? I know that sampler cds are there to introduce you to new bands, but you never really expect to hear your new favourite band on a sampler cd. Usually you've heard the name before you hear them, or you've heard something good about them; it's rarely a complete surprise like that.

Anyway, after returning home, I played the cd again, still loved The Hustle and found the album on Bandcamp. I played Of Gold, Bars of Gold's first and only-at-the-time album, a lot - before that point I'd never seen the guilt-tripping recommendation to buy the album on Bandcamp (of course, that album also caused me to realise that you could listen in incognito mode and not be tracked). For years I meant to buy the album, but I kept putting it off. Postage from the states is always expensive and customs fees a secondary kick in the balls. And then it sold out, so I missed my chance.

Some years later, Equal Vision Records repressed their first two albums (I feel that Third Man Records was involved somehow, but I can't remember how) and I jumped on the chance to get a copy. The postage and customs fees were still horrific - in fact more-so because the exchange rate has tanked - but it was worth it. Yes, this album cost me nearly £34, which is a lot for a single LP (it's nearly £1-a-minute), but it was worth it (look at that colour! It's listed as gold and clear swirl, but what that means is the gold has this almost-chrome effect). Annoyingly, the album didn't come with mp3s but I finally caved on the first of the recent "Bandcamp days" (where BC waive their cut) and bought the mp3s. I love this album and I want to listen to it all the time and now I can.

I should probably say something about the other songs, because they're all remarkable in their own right: Boss Level sets things off to a perfect start with a brilliant riff played out on a keyboard, before Marc's unique vocals kick in, and the build-up/break in Heaven Has Heater is perfect. The guitars in Birds are great fun and Up Up Up teeters on the edge of falling apart but holds it together. Cannibals lulls you into the false belief that the closer would be a quieter affair, only to build up to a huge outro of "I was born a cannibal / Not like any cannibal you've seen before" and more glorious guitars.

Anyway, as I wrote about on that Bear Vs Shark record, this album led me to discover BVS, which has been a great journey too. Who knew that free sampler cd would result in finding two amazing bands and their five amazing albums.

Format: 12"
Tracks: 8
Cost: £33.74 new
Bought: Equal Vision website
When: 23/03/19
Colour: Gold and clear swirl
Etching: none
mp3s: none

Run the Jewels - Bust No Moves

The final in a little trilogy of Run the Jewels records, this is a 12" they put out for Record Store Day in 2015. I wasn't buying a huge amount that year - in fact, I only bought four records, but one was a Manics record and the other by the Dirty Three, so both essential purchases (the other was a Clutch album, which I didn't really need but enjoy anyway - I was up early and it felt like a waste to do so for only three records).

I didn't know much about the release ahead of time, but was keen to get it regardless. As it is, we get two new songs - the title track and Blockbuster Night Pt 2, which is safe to assume is a sequel to Blockbuster Night Pt 1 on RTJ2 (I think it might have been a bonus track somewhere, but not one I had). The version of Love Again is the same as on my copy of the LP, but apparently the first pressings didn't have the verse by Boots. Pew Pew Pew is one of the bonus tracks on the second disc of RTJ1 - it's probably the best song on this EP.

It's a nice little record, but easily forgotten between the gatefold sleeves of the RTJ LPs around it - plastic sleeves are rarely eye-catching when side-on on a shelf. The colour is nice, although I couldn't confidently say what colour it actually is.

Format: 12"
Tracks: 4
Cost: £13 new
Bought: Truck Store, Oxford
When: 18/04/15
Colour: Clear with splatter
Etching: none
mp3s: no

Run the Jewels - Run the Jewels 3

I'd started writing about this one yesterday, then I saw that they released Run the Jewels 4 early, so I stopped what I was doing and started listening to the new one. I'd not long finished writing about how I frantically downloaded RTJ3 on Christmas morning when I began frantically downloading RTJ4. As long as Run the Jewels are releasing albums, I'll be aiming to get my ears around them as soon as possible. Anyway, more on RTJ4 another day.

Some people I know didn't rate RTJ3 as highly as RTJ2, but I'd go so far as to say that I love this one even more than RTJ2. Whilst the start is the crazy-catchy big tunes, there are some heavy moments in the second half of the album that hit really fucking hard - Don't Get Captured, Thieves, Thursday in the Danger Room and A Report to the Shareholders/Kill Your Masters are all amazing and have raps that you can't help but be moved by. Thursday in the Danger Room is just devastating - El-P's verse pulls at the heartstrings, but then Killer Mike just destroys you. If you haven't, I recommend listening to that one with the lyrics to hand. Wow. It's hard to not think about all things kicking off around the world right when you hear those songs.

Near the start, you also have one of my favourite of El's verses - his lines in Talk To Me are great, peaking with "You don't get it, I'm dirt motherfucker I can't be crushed". Call Ticketron has a super-annoying hook, to the extent that I skip it most of the time I listen to the album. The first three tracks are a great opening - each one a step up from what came before, and Hey Kids follows this trajectory, so it's just a shame that Call Ticketron gets in the way of that. Panther Like a Panther made it onto my end of the year mixtape in 2017 and, along with 2100 (is that a guitar that pops up behind El's first verse?), was one of my first favourite songs on the album. I think that might be one of the best things about RTJ3 - at various points over the last three and a half years almost all of the songs have been a favourite at some point.

Run the Jewels dropped RTJ3 on Christmas Day in 2016. I found out about it via an email (old school) and frantically downloaded it. It was a strange Christmas Day - we were going to my sister's for lunch, then down to my wife's parents' house in London afterwards - it was the most time I think I've ever spent in the car on a Christmas Day. However, that meant I'd get to listen to the new RTJ on the way; great, I thought. The first hurdle was finding any blank cds to burn the album to. I was trying to find them whilst also trying to pack the car and look like I was being helpful, and eventually concluded that I must have run out. I figured the car had a way of plugging in some audio cables, so I grabbed those, stuck the album on an old mp3 player and hit the road. Annoyingly, that cable was broken, so it was quite a disappointment when we hit the motorway and I couldn't enjoy the new RTJ. Finally, after lunch I asked my brother-in-law if he had any cables I could borrow, and he leant me a 5-meter audio cable, which did the job (and took up most of the glove compartment for a few months until I remembered to return them). As the sun set and we drove to London, I finally got to hear RTJ3 for the first time. Sure, my shitty car hifi isn't the best to listen to a new album on, nor is it easy to pay attention to what they're rapping whilst also navigating the six lanes of the M25, but I enjoyed it. I think I also just really enjoyed hearing the album on the day it came out and having a memorable experience of that. Not sure my wife was such a fan mind you.

A few weeks later the physical copies hit the shelves and I rushed out to get a copy. The shop had this one, or one that came with a gold chain for a small amount more. I decided that I didn't need the chain in my life so plumped for the cheaper option. It's a nice package - gold vinyl and nice touches. I vaguely remember there being an AR app that made the artwork come to life - it wouldn't run on my phone, but I installed it on an iPhone in the office and had a play. I can't remember much of what it did. All that said, the highlight is, as always, the lyric sheet - I remember sitting down with the album and reading every line (sometimes a couple of times as it played) and just taking it all in. There are some fucking genius lines on this album.

Format: Double 12", insert, sticker sheet
Tracks: 14
Cost: £27 new
Bought: Norman Records
When: 20/01/17
Colour: Gold
Etching: none
mp3s: none

Run the Jewels - Run the Jewels 2

When Run the Jewels released RTJ2, it felt like everything fell into place. They'd released an album that was truly incredible and everyone uniformly agreed - I don't think I heard (or have heard since) a single bad word about RTJ2. You'd play that album and people would be bowled over; moreover you'd play that album and without fail someone would reveal themselves as an RTJ fan - not that they were necessarily hiding it, but it was people you simply hadn't spoken to about music before. It was great. I was so pleased to see Killer Mike and El-P finally get the respect they deserved; this album propelled them to the place they should have been for years.

They released the album for free on October 24th 2014, and 364 days later I finally bought a copy. I'd planned to get it as soon as it was announced, and then really wanted to get a copy after I heard it. I can't remember why it took so long - maybe it sold out most places at the start. Either way, I picked up this pink vinyl copy (with some money going to a breast cancer charity) and sat down with the lyrics sheet open for the first physical play. Even though I'd played this album a lot in the year before that point, it was incredible reading the lines and hearing these brilliant moments and subtleties that had passed me by. It's been a long time since I've played a record and been so engrossed in the lyrics. Routinely I had to wait for breaks of choruses to go back and re-read some of the lines. Mike and El wrote some incredible verses here. When RTJ3 came out, I had another incredible time reading the lines and I'm so, so looking forward to doing the same thing with RTJ4.

There's no point listing the best raps because I'd end up re-writing huge sections of the lyrics sheet. Similarly, listing the best songs would mean listing most of the song titles. When I wrote about the debut album I said that the first nine tracks were good and then Christmas Fucking Miracle was just a step above it all; on RTJ they take the step-up that song represented, make another step beyond that and wrote 11 whole songs at that level. Oh My Darling Don't Cry is a perfect example of that, and it's only the second song on the album. The way Mike and El trade verses and work off each other's energy is perfect and seamless throughout, but All Due Respect might be the finest example of that. All My Life is the first real moment to breathe on the album, but the raps are still dense - it's a needed moment after the four songs that proceeded it. I saw RTJ for the first time at Primavera Sound in 2015 and Lie, Cheat, Steal always takes me back to that set.

One final note on this album - when they announced the album, El and Mike jokingly (and whilst high) put out a bunch of ridiculous kickstarter rewards including re-recording the whole album using cat noises. Someone then made an actual kickstarter to raise the money to make that happen and they agreed to do it, with the money going to charity. Being a cat-owner, I couldn't resist and chipped in to make sure it happened. I'd say about 1-in-10 times I put on RTJ2, I decide to put on Meow the Jewels instead.

Format: Double 12", insert, sticker sheet
Tracks: 11
Cost: £21.50 new
Bought: Norman Records
When: 23/10/15
Colour: Pink marble
Etching: none
mp3s: none

Restorations - Little Elephant Session

Tonight I should have been going to see Restorations play in London. They were playing the arse-end of London and the journey there and back from Oxford is a huge pain, but it was going to be worth it. I love Restorations; every time I've seen them play they put a huge smile on my face and I just can't get enough of them. Last time they played, I drove to Newport to see them and dragged some friends along too - the band commented they didn't know when they'd get a chance to play here again, and I worried it might be the last time I'd see them. When they announced their little tour I was so pleased. Bloody coronavirus. This show being cancelled, along with the Vile Creature and Bismuth show in the Black Heart, really hit the hardest. I miss live music, even if as a parent I don't get to go to anywhere near as many shows as I'd like in normal times.

To make up for not seeing Restorations, here are three live songs from their Little Elephant session in 2016. All are from the first half of LP3, an album I adore (number 4 in my albums of the year in 2014). A few years later I was on holiday (back when holidays were a thing) and I only had a few albums on my phone, and no iPod; LP3 was one of them and I played it to death. We'd not long found out we were expecting our first child and I remember sitting on the balcony one evening, reading my parenting book and listening to these songs. I think of that evening every time I hear Separate Songs.

All three songs are great examples of why I love this band so much - great, earnest rock songs with one moment where it all comes together into something absolutely huge - on Separate Songs it's around the lines "Imagine that focus in real life / Imagine going outside / Imagine not waiting for something to come along" (the middle line being very apt right now); on Tiny Prayers it all comes together around the lines "I don't know what's worse / No opinion or no thirst"; on Wales it's in the chorus (and the abrupt ending).

This is the only Little Elephant record I have, although I'd definitely buy more if the exchange rate wasn't so shitty and international post and customs so expensive. They've recorded a lot of great bands. The sound isn't great at the start of the record but soon clears up, so might just be this copy (each one is lathe-cut, which I don't really understand). I ordered this one from the band when they were selling off a bunch of stuff, I assume to fund the recording of LP5000. I also got the Jena Berlin album and 7" at the same time. I got stung on customs charges, so the whole lot proved expensive, but I'm glad to have this record in my collection. Right now I'm just happy to be listening to Restorations play live in any setting, even if it's just three songs and no way near as fun as singing along with a bunch of strangers in a bar in deepest south-east London.

Format: 12", one-sided, lathe-cut, hand-stamped and numbered (#35)
Tracks: 3
Cost: £22 new
Bought: Band's website
When: 03/08/17
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: none

The World is a Beautiful Place and I Am No Longer Afraid to Die - Always Foreign

Whilst Harmlessness was a grower, TWIABP's third album was far more instant and accessible. Harmlessness remains my favourite record (now, it took a long time to reach that status though), but I was a fan of this one from the off. The music is a lot poppier in places and the songs feel simpler in structure - few have multiple movements, but there are greater variations between the songs, rather than within them. That maybe doesn't sound that positive, but it all works well for them, much more-so that you'd expect.

The album starts gently, and The Future is an upbeat follow-up. It sets a tone for the album that lyrically is miles away from how it plays out - there's rarely anything heavy in the music, but the lyrics show the darker side, particularly in the back-half of the album with the trio of For Robin, Marine Tigers and Fuzz Minor. The middle of those three made it onto my end-of-year mixtape and has been played to death in the car (so much so I half expect it to go straight into Bosses Hang Pt3 by Godspeed, which was how I followed it up). I still love it - the marching drums and classic post-rock build-up/explosion full of horns.

I ordered this as soon as Banquet listed it on their website, along with a handful of other records and got it a week or so after it came out. It was definitely the first of that parcel I played and I still remember sitting down to play it. I was shocked that it was such an instant hit, but I'd been listening to Harmlessness so much since I'd finally got into it at the start of the year that I guess I was just primed for it. The record is a lovely splatter, as you can see below.

Format: 12", gatefold, picture sleeve
Tracks: 11
Cost: £19.65 new
Bought: Banquet Records website
When: 05/10/17
Colour: Transparent blue with green splatter
Etching: none
mp3s: download code