I consider myself a fairly big Hot Water Music fan, but my ability to remember which order their albums came out in, or which one is which (other than Fuel, Flight and Caution) is shockingly bad. Never Ender was, apparently, the third HWM album I got, after the three I just mentioned (in reverse order). I had no idea I'd started so strong, nor did I know that my fourth album would be a collection of songs from 7"s and not a traditional album; you'd definitely not know by just looking at the sleeve, which was all I had to go on that Saturday in Damaged.
I like Never Ender, but it doesn't get a huge amount of play. As is my usual excuse, I don't have mp3s for the album, but on top of that I couldn't tell you which HWM albums I do and don't have digital copies of, so it doesn't immediately jump out at me when I'm browsing my records as one I should give more time. Still, it's a nice album - I doubt I'll ever reach a point where I'm seeking out all the HWM 7"s and splits, so I'd probably not have heard these songs otherwise.
The first two songs are from the Alachua 7" from 1997, but aren't quite as heavy as their sound on Fuel for the Hate Game, despite being from around the same time (the two songs from the You Can Take the Boy Out of Bradenton 7" have a lot more in common with that album). Both of the title tracks from those 7"s are great and have that perfect mix of huge HWM choruses and both Chuck and Chris singing completely unintelligible lyrics at the same time. Sandwiched between those 7"s are the songs from two splits - The Bitter End is a particularly great song, and sounds like The Loved Ones tried to steal it entirely for the title track of Build & Burn.
Apparently Elektra and Things on a Dashboard are on an 8" record, which I'm quite tempted to try to pick up just for the unusual size (I wonder if there are many 11" records around?). The final four songs are from the Push for Coin cassette from 1995, which are excellent given that they must be some of the first songs they recorded.
I, of course, have no idea what colour this record is. Based on the variants they pressed of it in 2008 (when I bought it), and a rough idea of colours, I'm going to say this is the "pink mix", which is apparently one of 131 in that colour from that pressing. It's pointless getting excited about any particular colour of any particular pressing because there are so many variations it all basically becomes the same. (Update: I asked my wife and she reckons it's the "dark purple with pink", but there were only 9 pressed in that colour, so it seems too unlikely. But I guess someone has to own them.)
Format: 12", picture sleeve
Tracks: 12
Cost: £9 new
Bought: Damaged Records, Cardiff
When: 25/10/08
Colour: Pink mix
Etching: none
mp3s: none
