I have a strange relationship with eBay these days. I don't use it much, and when I do it's almost entirely buying Manic Street Preachers or Jason Molina records. But sometimes I just browse it a bit when I'm bored, and type in the names of bands that pop into my mind whose records I might like to buy. I still long to own a copy of Attack in Black's Marriages LP on vinyl (any version will do, and there have been some nice reissues since the original that I didn't buy when we saw them blow us away supporting Far in TJ's), so I mindlessly typed their name into the search bar one evening. Somewhere near the top of the results was this LP which I don't think I was even aware of, and for only £8 (£10.35 with postage). I put in a-slightly-over-starting-bid offer and waited until the clock ran out.
The record is, as the title describes, the first two releases from the band pressed onto one (45rpm) record - their 2005 debut, self-titled EP and the 2006 Widows EP that preceded Marriages. Apparently there are 750 copies in total, and only 200 on yellow, so I was lucky to find a copy at all, let alone for just over a tenner.
I have a copy of the debut EP from a trip I took to Canada in the spring after I'd seen them in Newport (they were touring, but the dates didn't work with our trip around the east of the country, which is a shame). I found a record shop in Toronto called Criminal Records and bought a lot of music, including two Attack in Black LPs and the debut EP on cd (the only format it was released on). Later that same day, I found a copy of Hum's You'd Prefer an Astronaut on cd; it was a good day. When I got back to Cardiff I popped the cd in and was amazed to hear five scrappy hardcore punk songs thrashed out in under 15-minutes. In hindsight, the inclusion of a cover of Depression by Black Flag should have been a clue, but I definitely expected them to be doing it more in the style of the band I knew from Marriages (as it turns out, it is very faithful to the original). I'd already been caught off-guard by their change in sound between Marriages and The Curve of the Earth, so hearing their hardcore beginnings added to a ridiculously fast change in style. We saw and listened to a lot of hardcore bands when I was in Cardiff, and this version of Attack in Black sounded like pretty much every band we were into at the time. But there were hints of the melody they'd eventually find in the choruses.
I'd not heard Widows before getting this record, but was very familiar with the songs Broken Things and The Love Between You and I from my over-playing of Marriages over the years. However, these recordings are different, and different enough to make the arc from the debut EP to Marriages more understandable. Broken Things is one of my favourite songs (in general, not just by the band), and this version is a bit looser, a bit thrasher in places and feels less polished (in a good way). The bare drums and group vocals in the chorus are every bit as perfect as they are on the later version. Something about the guitars in The Love Between You and I have much more in common with the debut than the album version. Similarly, there's a hint to the vocals that's a bit more hardcore, despite the fact that Daniel's signing is actually singing now. The link between the two eras is much clearer on the other two songs, Cut and Run and 1950, which both would have been the least hardcore thing on the debut, but not sounded out of place - the hints of melody almost doing battle with the older style within the songs themselves. It's nice when those linking pieces fall into place and you can see better how a band's sound developed. If I'd heard this before the debut, I wouldn't have been quite so surprised putting that cd into my player back in 2009.
Format: 12", numbered (50/200)
Tracks: 9
Cost: £10.35 new
Bought: eBay
When: 16/01/21
Colour: Transparent yellow
Etching: none
mp3s: none
