Amen - The Waiting 18

About six months after finding the Too Hard To Be Free 7" at a record fair, I picked up this picture disc at the same record fair. I'd bought a lot of records that day and was heading home, but browsed through one last stall on the way out. The guy had this 7" for £4 I think, but I had only £2.90 left on me, so I asked him if he'd take that much for it and he begrudgingly accepted. The cheapest one on Discogs is £3, so I reckon I'd got the price right.

The Waiting 18 was the first single from Amen's second album, and far better than Too Hard to Be Free (but not good, don't get me wrong). I remember really digging the chorus at the time - it is a pretty huge chorus - there's something very Alice Cooper about it. The b-side is a scrappy live recording of Justified, another song from their second album. It was recorded in Oxford, which is now where I live (I certainly never thought at 16 that one I'd be sat here listening to this record in Oxford at 32). The whole thing is on a shamelessly gratuitous picture disc of a naked woman within a crucifix, so comes in a black sleeve. The Sex Pistols-style font is more annoying than anything else.

Format: 7", picture disc
Tracks: 2
Cost: £2.90 second hand
Bought: Record Fair, Southampton
When: 29/07/01
Colour: Picture disc
Etching: none
mp3s: no

Amen - Too Hard to Be Free

Amen were another one of those bands that came at a very dangerous time. Any earlier and I'd have had no interest in their style of music, and any later and I'd have seen through it for the gimmicky stuff it was. But instead they struck at the exact right moment. Bastards.

I was still at school when their second album came out, but already I was keen to explore things outside of nu-metal. However, I wasn't in a position to move that far away it seems, as Amen were basically the punk equivalent of nu-metal. It didn't help that I got all of my musical knowledge from Kerrang! magazine, who were big fans of Amen.

It's not all bad, mind you; Kerrang! had the singer of Amen put together a compilation of songs that made it onto a free cd with the magazine. He squeezed a lot on - I think that cd had nearly 30 songs and was my introduction to Refused, Turbonegro, Poison the Well, The Birthday Party and The Distillers (I should dig that cd and listen to it again - I wonder what stuff went over my head then that I might actually enjoy now). I like to think I'd have got into all those bands eventually - they mostly would have been hard to avoid - but it remains my introduction, so I'm pleased of that, and I guess thankful.

So whilst Casey Chaos may have introduced me to some cool music, the years have not been kind to the music he was making. Too Hard to be Free (misspelt as "Too hard too be free" on the reverse of the sleeve - I mean, come on) lacks anything particularly interesting in 2017, 16 years after it was released. The chorus has a bit of something to it, but the rest is pretty flat. I remember thinking they had better songs than that one at the time.

The b-side is a live studio recording of Europe for BBC Radio 1 Rock Show session (which I think I recorded at the time and still have on a minidisc somewhere - such was the time). It's a Killing Joke cover (I now know), but you wouldn't know from looking at the sleeve. I remember thinking it was a highlight of that session. It's the better song of the two now for sure.

Format: 7"
Tracks: 2
Cost: £1.50 second hand
Bought: Record Fair, Southampton
When: 01/06/01
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: no