Strand of Oaks - Heal

Somehow this is the first Strand of Oaks record I've written about on here, which is surprising (to me) because I've been listening to them for years now. This record feels like an appropriate place to start, but it turns out this wasn't my starting point after all.

In 2018 the Songs: Molina / Memorial Electric Co shows got announced, including a show in London which I instantly bought tickets for. I love Jason Molina's music and was keen to see the songs played live again (I saw Magnolia Electric Co once, but that was the first time I'd heard them). Standing in for Jason was Timothy Showalter, who records under the name Strand of Oaks. At that point in time, I was pretty sure that was how I first heard the name Strand of Oaks. I text my friend Stubbs about the show as he was a big Molina fan too, and he told me that Strand of Oaks had released a beautiful tribute to Jason in the form of the song JM. I tried to find the song online, but struggled and listened to Pope Kildragon instead, which I really enjoyed.

But it turns out that wasn't the beginning, because I eventually noticed that I'd seen Strand of Oaks at Primavera Sound in 2015. They were the first band we saw on the last day of the festival, and I remember my friend's friend encouraging us to get there in good time such that we could see them (well, I remember him encouraging us to get there in time to see a band, and looking at the first band we saw each day it must have been Strand of Oaks). Sadly, for whatever reason, that show wasn't enough to make a lasting impression on me (but we saw a lot of bands that weekend, so the competition was tough).

Some time later I found a bunch of songs on my iPod from the Daytrotter Session Strand of Oaks recorded in 2010. This dates my first discovery of Strand of Oaks even earlier, because I was deeply into listening to and downloading Daytrotter Sessions for a few months in the spring of 2010. There was a short period between me discovering the archive of incredible music there and it becoming a paid service, but in that time I'd been a huge fan, downloading sessions from bands I loved and trying a bunch of new ones. Exactly what caused me to download the Strand of Oaks session I don't know, but it was likely a favourable write-up on the site. The songs he played that day are from Leave Ruin, an album I've never really got into, so maybe that's why they didn’t make a huge impression on me.

So after two failed starts, third time I got lucky and became a big fan of Timothy's music. The first album of his that I bought was this one, a month after the Songs: Molina show. They'd played JM that night and it was lovely. I'm pretty sure I had heard it prior to that, but it really worked well that night. It's the highlight of the album - dark and brooding - but that's not to diminish the other songs - Shut In is an incredible song too - there's something Springsteen-esque to the echo on the vocals and the guitars somehow make the song sound really uplifting. Goshen '97 is a great opener (I love the Smashing Pumpkins reference). Generally though it comes across as quite a dark album - Mirage Year and For Me are even heavier than JM; Plymouth sandwiched between them serves only to minimise the despair. All in all, I have a lot of time for this album, so I'm glad everything finally clicked with Strand of Oaks.

Format: 12", picture sleeve
Tracks: 10
Cost: £15 new
Bought: Norman Records website
When: 26/10/18
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: Download

Nine Inch Nails - Quake

Around 2000 or 2001 I bought a Sega Saturn. By this point, it was already considered a failed console, a slight oddity of the generation between the classic cartridge eras and the huge success of the PlayStation and Nintendo 64. A friend who I'd spent a lot of time playing Goldeneye with had discovered drugs and was already selling off all his possessions to buy weed; he asked if I wanted to buy his Sega Saturn and six games for a fairly measly sum - I can't remember how much, but I want to say £30. I wasn't a huge gamer, but enjoyed my N64 enough to think I should try another console. In amongst the games included were Quake, Alien Trilogy, a futuristic racing game that I didn't enjoy as much as F-Zero X, and Loaded, the game that introduced me to Pop Will Eat Itself (who themselves eventually crossed paths with NIN near the end of their career, and at the start of Clint Mansell's incredible film-scoring era. I wonder if he and Trent ever chatted about the Quake soundtrack).

Anyway, I found almost all of the games on the Sega Saturn incredibly hard to play, and Quake was particularly disappointing since the graphics were so basic compared to what I'd grown up used to on Goldeneye (which I'm sure looks beyond shit to anyone playing games now). I'd heard so much about what a landmark game Quake was that I had very high expectations, but couldn't progress in it very far because I was so bad at it, something I attributed to the crappy graphics, but was much more likely related to my skill level. However, I knew that Trent Reznor had done the soundtrack, and I remember hearing these haunted, sparse but sufficiently industrial soundscapes and thinking they were cool. The great thing about Sega Saturn games was that you could put the cd in your cd player, skip the game data on track 1 and play the rest of the soundtrack as an audio cd - that was how I heard Pop Will Eat Itself, and where I first heard all these songs (I honestly was so bad at the game I probably heard at most three of them whilst actually playing the game).

Fast forward 20 years, and I was stood in my kitchen having just got my children to bed when I saw on Twitter (or possibly an email) that NIN were putting out the Quake soundtrack on vinyl as well as reissuing With Teeth (one of my favourite NIN albums), and The Social Network soundtrack (which I didn't buy - I think collecting all the soundtracks that Trent Reznor has done is a rabbit-hole too far). I immediately ordered Quake and With Teeth and they turned up amazingly soon afterwards. They'd done such a great job with the previous reissues, with such attention to detail and care that I was keen for more.

The Quake soundtrack is no exception to this rule. The ten songs are spread across three sides of vinyl and the fourth is etched with some lines of what I think are C++ relating to the songs in the game code (there's a line that looks like a comment starting with // which I think is C++, although I've never dared to try to use that language myself). It's basically impossible to photograph, so you'll just have to believe me on that. There was due to be a nice booklet containing details of the recording like in their other reissues, but I think a legal dispute meant it couldn't be published, although Trent leaked it on the internet as he is known to do. The Quake logo on the sleeve is embossed, although my favourite detail might be the images of the blocky off-white CRT monitor on the inner sleeves. It's funny how something once so prevalent now looks so dated.

It's probably fair to say that about 20 years passed between me hearing the songs on my Sega Saturn cd and getting this vinyl. I would have played them a few times back in the day, but nowhere near as much as I played The Downward Spiral or Broken or The Fragile. I went off to university and the Sega Saturn spent a good few years sat in a cupboard at my parents' house. Eventually I told my brother he could have it, but I have no idea how much he played it. He is a much better gamer than me, so I like to think he heard more of the soundtrack in its natural habitat than I ever did, but I don't know for sure. When the vinyl got released, I asked him to dig out the cd so I could make a copy of the mp3s, something that had never crossed my mind in the years in between. I still don't listen to these songs often, but when I'm in the mood for instrumental Trent Reznor songs, they often fill the void nicely (it's a very heavily populated genre of music, and the pandemic-released Ghosts albums have become my go-to listens).

Often here very little happens, but the mood is set perfectly. I find it hard to think that people could genuinely have found the gameplay scary, since the graphics were what they were, but I guess expectations were lower. However, this music is thoroughly haunting in isolation, so perhaps it was exactly what the game needed. It's funny to think of 1996-era Nine Inch Nails creating this soundtrack having no idea that Trent would go on to become one of Hollywood's biggest film-score composers. It's nice to hear the beginning of that arc, and how established the style already was.

Format: Double 12", picture sleeves, gatefold
Tracks: 10
Cost: £44
Bought: Nine Inch Nails website
When: 19/09/2020
Colour: Black
Etching: lines of code on side D
mp3s: None

Explosions in the Sky - The Earth is Not a Cold Dead Place

 

I think we're all totally in agreement by now that this album is perfect. It's not a term I use lightly, but surely this is the time to use it, if ever. Explosions have released a bunch of other great albums - some that sound a bit like this, others that sound a bit further away - and countless other instrumental bands have released albums that sound broadly similar, but none have done so as wonderfully as Explosions did here. Five songs, each fascinating and emotive and majestic; no messing around, no filler. Perfect.

I suspect it wasn't always that way, but somehow nearly two decades have passed and this album has become even more of a gem. I got into the band just after they'd released All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone and had heard that this album was worth seeking out, so bought a cheap cd copy a few months before going to see them at the All Tomorrow's Parties they curated. I loved it from the outset and seeing the songs thrashed out on the main stage in Minehead that spring was amazing. 

I gradually bought their other albums, but ended up waiting until the pandemic hit to upgrade my cd copy for the vinyl. Record Shops had been shut for only a short period at the time (compared to how long this thing would stretch on for), but it'd been a hard time, so I figured I'd buy some records I was after from a few of my favourite shops (that had a reasonable online presence) and fill some holes in my collection (plus, being at home meant I wasn't really spending any money). Resident Records had this one in, so I was pleased to get a copy. I distinctly remember gasping at the stunning etching on side D - the simplicity of it makes it stand out from most other etched records. Every record collection should have a copy of this masterpiece.

Format: double 12", picture sleeves
Tracks: 5
Cost: £18.49 new
Bought: Resident Records website
When: 30/04/20
Colour: Black
Etching: Etching of birds on side D
mp3s: Download card

Various Artists - Tiny Changes: A Celebration of Frightened Rabbit's The Midnight Organ Fight

 

I was gutted when I heard the news of Scott Hutchison's disappearance and subsequent death. I'd drifted away from Frightened Rabbit's music at the time, but The Midnight Organ Fight remained a firm favourite. I'd bought it at the very start of my PhD having read a review in the university newspaper (which dates the time I read it, as I'm pretty sure no one reads the university newspaper beyond their first few weeks), and the line "While I'm alive, I'll make tiny changes to earth" became something of a mantra for the next three-and-a-half years - the only way to motivate yourself through a PhD is remembering that the very minor thing you're studying is entirely new, and the whole purpose is to say something no one has ever said before; there are mathematical theorems that I discovered and they're mine and forever will be - I was the first one to discover those things and those "tiny changes" are mine (and, trust me, they are tiny). It got me through that period of my life.

But I ended up loving The Winter of Mixed Drinks less, and I somehow missed out on Pedestrian Verse entirely. I picked up a copy of Painting of a Panic Attack in 2017 and really found little in it for me. I'd lost track of Scott's side-projects and didn't discover the excellent Mastersystem album until after his death (more on that another time). I vividly remember scrolling through Twitter one morning at work and seeing the final tweet Scott posted and the ensuing panic from friends and family. It was a (thankfully, so far) unique feeling and one I hope not experience again. Whilst I'd never even met Scott, his music on The Midnight Organ Fight had meant so much to me I was really thrown; I felt particularly helpless, wishing there was something I could but almost certainly being hundreds of miles away from anywhere useful. 

As a big Manics fan, my mind soon drifted onto thoughts of Richey Edwards. When I first heard the Manics, Richey had already been missing for years, but seeing the panic and fear in real time from Scott's loved ones made me think about different it must have been in 1995 without the internet. Two days later, there was a sad ending to Scott's story but it felt like longer - in my mind there was a week between the two events, but maybe that's how time feels like it passes in situations like that. I can't begin to imagine what it was like for Richey's friends and family.

Three paragraphs in and I've not even mentioned this record yet. Before Scott's death, this tribute album was in the works - it's status as a classic album was already established. I wasn't aware how well-loved it was by people other than me, and I was pleasantly surprised to find out that it was universally adored. Perhaps "surprised" is the wrong word - there's no reason to be surprised; it's a huge album. I didn't (and still don't) know most of the names of the artists covering the songs here, but Biffy Clyro, The Twilight Sad and Craig Finn were enough to give me an idea and also draw me in. I remember watching a heart-wrenching video of The Twilight Sad covering Keep Yourself Warm at Primavera Sound shortly after Scott's death (although they cover Floating the Forth here, a song I can only imagine was even harder to manage).

When we first moved into this house, my daughter's room was the only one that we'd decorated and spent much time in, so I kept a record player up there with a small handful of records. This one was up there for a long time and I played it a lot with her, particularly while my wife was in hospital after our second was born. It's not the most appropriate record to play in front of a young child, but I'm pretty sure she wasn't listening to the words. As a result, I have bittersweet memories of these versions of the songs - playing Duplo with my two-year-old, but also thinking about the sad end of Scott's life. The memories felt a world apart from my memories of the original album - academia and going to as many gigs as I could manage in London. A critical but very true statement is that these songs aren't as good as the originals - few add anything to the excellent song-writing of the originals (Craig Finn's cover is one of the better ones, and Biffy's take on The Modern Leper is unusual, but comes together in the end). But I love that I had a chance to reconnect with these songs in a thoroughly different phase of my life and create new memories of them.

Format: Double 12", gatefold sleeve, booklet

Tracks: 17

Cost: £25.50 new

Bought: Resident Records website

When: 05/08/19

Colour: Black

Etching: none

mp3s: none

Attack in Black - The First and Second Efforts of a Band That Died Before You Could Kill Them

 

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

Pitch Shifter - The 1990 Demo

I probably didn't need to buy the demos of Pitch Shifter's debut album, but here we are. On one hand, the band meant a huge amount to me for a good and important period of time, and despite not being a fan of their earlier industrial stuff when I first heard it I've found I quite enjoy it now I'm older. On the other hand - and I say this as something of a compliment I guess - I'd honestly struggle to tell you whether I was listening to the demos or the album itself, and I already have that album on vinyl and on cd; this LP feels pretty redundant. I was vaguely aware of the band putting the record out via Kickstarter but I didn't go out of my way to buy it, only picking it up a while later when it found it's way into the Record Culture sale section (where I think there is still at least one copy). I can't turn down a good offer.

Of the eight songs on Industrial, six of them have demos here (Gravid Rage and New Flesh are missing), and we instead have Behemoth, an unreleased song from the era, originally called Mouthscape. Musically, the quality of the demos is on a par with the album itself. I wouldn't necessarily call either "good", in fact part of the charm of Industrial was the bleak, imposing wall of sound and lack of frills. Mark's barked vocals might be different, or they might be exactly the same - there are only a few moments when you can really tell what he's saying anyway. I'm sure someone somewhere would have noticed if they'd just pressed six of the exact same versions of these songs in a different order, but I can't help but wonder if this is just some elaborate prank - that maybe they did just put out the exact same mixes but call them demos (possibly even by accident). Or maybe I should listen to the actual album again to be more sure. The vocals on Landfill do sound different (a bit more echo, perhaps?) but I've not listened to the album in a while, so maybe I'm just mis-remembering. I still love the simplicity of those lyrics. Behemoth is the only thing that really sounds like a demo - it fits perfectly onto the album musically, although the vocals are much cleaner than anything else from the era. It's a nice addition, but not worth the entry cost on it's own.

Thinking about it, it's a rather major criticism of a record - the idea that it really doesn't need to exist because it sounds identical to one that I paid the grand sum of £2.85 for on eBay (including postage!). A bigger criticism is the artwork, which looks like someone bashed together in about 3 minutes in a Word doc. The font is definitely the first one they found in the dropdown menu. It bothers me that there's a white square before the word "Pitch" and one after, but not one after "Shifter" - it makes sense when the two words are written one above the other - as on the Industrial artwork, but makes no sense in one line. Mostly it's one of the least interesting looking record sleeves I own, but that aspect is just infuriating. The italic version of the font on the centre label is even more horrific. I'm no design snob, but it looks terrible.

Some nice things to say about it - it's a really heavy, thick vinyl (but why you'd want the demos (allegedly) to be pressed on nicer vinyl than the album itself I don't know), and it's on clear vinyl which is more interesting than just black vinyl. Etched into the run-out grooves are the coordinates of a location in Bristol, which I think is where they hid a "Pitch Shifter skull", although I remember a tweet that no one had discovered it for a good while; I don't have much time to spare, let alone in Bristol, so even if I had noticed these earlier, I doubt I'd have made the journey. It didn't come with a download code, but I'm pretty sure I could just shuffle around the tracks from Industrial in iTunes and have six-sevenths of the experience digitally. 

Format: 12", numbered (462/500)
Tracks: 7
Cost: £18 new
Bought: Record Culture
When: 26/01/21
Colour: Clear
Etching: Side A: "51°26'33'' N - 2°32'10'' W" Side B: "Seth-Wynn-Seth Forever"
mp3s: no 

Nine Inch Nails - Hesitation Marks

I don't have many particularly strong memories of Hesitation Marks. So much so, I remember getting this LP recently and looking quite hard at the tracklisting before really recognising any of the songs at all; for a short moment I wondered if I'd not even heard the album before. For some reason, I kinda lost my way with Nine Inch Nails after Year Zero - that was 2007 and my last year of university. I loved that album and everything that went along with it (and I loved With Teeth, which came out in my second year of university even moreso). That summer I saw NIN play an incredible set at Sziget Festival in Hungary (we happened to be in Budapest when the festival was on, but that was partly because I'd suggested dates that meant I'd be able to see NIN there). But the end of 2007 marked the move to Cardiff and the immersion in the punk scene. Nine Inch Nails weren't punk.

I downloaded The Slip when it came out (as we were encouraged to do), but somehow still haven't bought a real copy of that album (which I do occasionally feel guilty about). It was fine, but it didn't do much for me. Maybe the fact I never had a real copy to prompt me to play it meant it never got the time it deserved. There's still a scratched cdr copy of it in my car, but I'm pretty sure it doesn't play. Then, five years later, Hesitation Marks came out and for whatever reason I waited a whole year to buy a copy (and probably only did so because the cd was a fiver in Fopp). In the time in between Year Zero and then, I'd started and finished my PhD and moved to Oxford. A couple of years later I'd rediscover the band and my enjoyment of them, and I got back into them properly; I even found myself quite enjoying the trilogy of EPs they put out. But Hesitation Marks remained this strange album in a 10 year gap of not caring about the band.

Looking at what else I bought that day, I can remember clearly bouncing around the central London record shops spending a good whack of money, but don't remember adding this one to my pile of cds and records (and one tape - Shellac's At Action Park). I spent £65 on music that day, and another £43 the next day in Banquet (having been to see the excellent La Dispute show that Banquet had put on in the All Saints Church, later immortalised on the Tiny Dots LP/dvd). I suspect Hesitation Marks suffered from not standing out sufficiently against the large amount of competition (and wasn't flat out terrible, like the Soulsavers album with the guy who isn't Mark Lanegan - I tried to listen to that again recently and still found it terrible).

So when Nine Inch Nails put the Quake soundtrack on vinyl up on their webstore, I ordered this one along with the reissue of With Teeth - they'd reissued enough of their albums to make having a complete collection of NIN LPs a realistic goal, so I figured this would be in fine company. On listening to it, the songs kinda came back, but with no strong connections. Copy of A and Come Back Haunted must have been singles, or at least songs that had some life outside of the album, because I recognised them, but that's about it. If you'd told me that there were NIN songs called Various Methods of Escape or I Would For You I'd have said "huh?" and "no, that's Jane's Addiction", respectively. The former has a great hook in the chorus, but plods through the verses; the latter has a huge, soaring chorus and probably would have been a hit had it not been left as song eleven on a 14-song album. All Time Low is a straight-up banger and Trent Reznor doing perfect pop, so I'd like to think I'd have remembered that one too. The saxophone on While I'm Still Here is amazing but totally wasted as a curio on the penultimate song.

If I'm being critical (or, perhaps, just reviewing things like a reviewer might), I'd say that Hesitation Marks is too long, lacks focus, is neither a guitar album or a synth album, and has too few memorable moments. I don't think those are very negative things to say, because they're all very true statements. Maybe they're all fair in isolation but sound damning when strung together like that. There's a strong eight or nine song album, but really I'm just including some fodder to make it an album - there's a great EP for sure.

As part of my NIN collection, I'm glad to have this one, and it's good that I've finally given it some attention, but even shelling out £35 wasn't enough to make me actually get much from it. 

Format: Double 12", picture sleeves, insert, gatefold

Tracks: 14

Cost: £34.80

Bought: Nine Inch Nails website

When: 19/09/2020

Colour: Black

Etching: None

mp3s: cd included

Nirvana - Nevermind

Like basically everyone on the planet, I own a copy of Nevermind by Nirvana. The only slightly remarkable thing about that is I didn't until April last year. As a grown man of 35-years, I bought a copy of Nevermind.

It's important to note that this wasn't my first copy of Nevermind. That album shares an interesting honour of being one of two albums I've bought and then sold (along with Back in Black by AC/DC). I think I'd bought a second hand copy from someone (but I can't remember who - I certainly hadn't bought it in a shop), but then ended up swapping it with a guy I sat next to at school called Johnny in exchange for A Perfect Circle's Mer de Noms - a good album, but let's not pretend it has anywhere near the significance of Nevermind. My spreadsheet has Mer de Noms as costing £6 (in November 2000), so I must have paid £6 for my copy of Nevermind. 

Of course, I didn't get rid of Nevermind because I didn't like it (the same can't be said for Back in Black - for some reason they never struck as a band I should really give two shits about), but somehow, at the age of 16, I already knew Nevermind well enough that I didn't need to listen to it. In the short time between getting into music and giving my copy of Nevermind to Johnny, I'd heard Nevermind for the first time and then played it to death. 

In the nearly-20 years between copies of this in my collection I'd listened to and seen live countless covers of the songs, and demos of most of them on the With the Lights Out boxset (and Kevin Devine's remarkably faithful cover of the whole album - I was definitely expecting it to not sound exactly like the Nirvana version), so it wasn't like the songs hadn't graced my ears. Plus, I've heard Smells Like Teen Spirit at basically every rock club night I've ever been to (plus as part of the seemingly essential "rock trio" of songs at the middle-of-the-road club nights at uni - Lancaster's speciality was this, The Day We Caught the Train and Seven Nation Army).

All that said, I have since found myself playing this quite a lot. It's album so closely linked to being a teenager that it's quite nostalgic, probably more-so for the fact I couldn't play it over the years. I hope Nirvana are still considered an important band when my daughters are teenagers - I like that these songs were such a staple of the life of every teenager-getting-into-rock for at least a few years around when it was for me. No matter what people say about Smells Like Teen Spirit, or how over-played it might be, it is just a very exciting song; it still makes me want to throw myself around in a mosh pit like I'm not a slightly-tired man in his mid-thirties with a perpetually sore back. I like music that reminds me I used to be youthful.

There's really not much else to say about the album itself. It's an incredible record in isolation, let alone in the bigger picture. It's not the greatest album of all time, but I can understand why it gets considered one of them (again, in isolation, but as well as the bigger picture). The only people I've ever met who have said otherwise have always found themselves endlessly singing the praises of Bleach or (more often) In Utero instead; I always felt they were being unnecessarily obtuse - even if you think In Utero is the better record, it doesn't make Nevermind a bad one. If anything, the fact that the only criticism I've ever really heard of it is that the album either side of it was better speaks to what a solid record it is.

Format: 12", picture sleeves

Tracks: 12

Cost: £11.98 new

Bought: Resident Records website

When: 04/04/20

Colour: Black

Etching: none

mp3s: download code

Deftones - White Pony (20th Anniversary Deluxe Edition)

Oooh, this is going to be a long one. I've been actively avoiding starting this blog post.

Luckily I've mostly calmed down now and I think I can finally listen to Black Stallion without the rage I had the first time I heard it. In fact, if you skip the terrible, tossed-off, barely 2-minute-long "remix" of Feiticeira, it's not a bad album. Now, that's not the praise it could be - "not bad" is a pretty low bar, especially given the source material here. There's a fair amount to unpack here, and I'm still not sure where to start.

Let's go back to the beginning. When Deftones started talking about the 20th anniversary of White Pony, there was talk of "Black Stallion", a plan they always had to get people to remix the album - not a revolutionary idea, but certainly not one that many metal bands could have pulled off in 2000, and still quite interesting in 2020. When the re-release got announced, I got very excited, even though few of the remixers meant anything to me (five of the eleven were names I knew, or had at least heard of). There were a few options, all very expensive - for £55 you could get the 4LP version, or for double that you could get the 4LP version with the albums on cd too, and a fancy book. It'd just been my birthday, and between my parents and my in-laws I had precisely £110 in birthday money (partly in the form of a Norman Records voucher). Despite knowing that I didn't need to go for the more expensive version, I went for it anyway. Hilariously, I remember thinking "if Black Stallion is awesome, I'll be pleased to have mp3s of it"; little did I know. 

At some point towards the tail end of 2020 Black Stallion was released on streaming services (I know this because my desk was in the sitting room, but it hadn't got so cold that I moved it nearer to the radiator - during a monotonous pandemic, the various locations of my desk are really the only way I can distinguish within the passage of time). I frantically dug out my long-forgotten Spotify password and gave it a listen. My heart sank almost instantly. What the fuck was that remix of Feiticeira? How could DJ Shadow not focus the entire remix of Digital Bath around Chino's "I feel like moooore", instead of letting it drift off into a blur of noises? Even Robert Smith's remix of Teenager was thoroughly underwhelming. The only remix that I didn't hate on first listen was Mike Shinoda's remix of Passenger - I read some comments about the album on the internet afterwards (a dangerous thing to do, and not recommended in general) mostly to see if I wasn't the only one who hated it. One person made the interesting comment that the mixers didn't "respect" the band or the material enough to do a good job, and I see what they mean. Mike Shinoda is the exception to that rule - I suspect he is the only one who looks up to the Deftones (Robert Smith is a fan, but the admiration goes the other way there). Then I read a review where someone said that remix was the low-point of the album. I think I agree with the offended metalhead more than the artsy-reviewer though.

I'm now going to dedicate a whole paragraph to ripping into the remix of Feiticeira, so if you've already had enough of my rage about that particular song, you can probably skip this one. If you've not heard the remix, it starts off with a few lines of the original guitar, before falling away to something that barely resembles anything from the original song. One or two of Chino's lines are somewhere in the background, and the whole finishes before it even really starts. Feiticeira is one of the greatest openings to an album ever, and is a huge song. How Clams Casino thought they could spin it into a half-baked interlude I don't know; how it got onto the album is a bigger mystery. The "respect" comment from before feels particularly apt here - how could anyone who actually enjoys that song, that album and the importance it plays turn in something so half-hearted? It's making me angry all over again. Utter garbage. I'm nearly tempted to buy that over-priced Record Store Day 12" just to have a better remix of Feiticeira (the b-side), and I've not even heard that one. But I can't see how it could be any worse.

But, if you just skip that song (in what world do you "just skip" Feiticeira? Argh!) then there's less to get angry about. Once I realised that was the solution, I have played Black Stallion a few more times. I couldn't say I've enjoyed it - it's not a patch on White Pony - but I've seen some of the appeal. In fact, in places it becomes an album you could play in polite company and people might enjoy (hang on, I'm trying to say the positive is that they've turned one of the greatest albums of all time into generic background music? What have I become?). The exception to that of course being Blanck Mass's remix of Elite, which somehow manages to be even heavier. I almost wish they'd gone the other way - I'd love to hear a non-brutal version of that song. A few of the songs really have few redeeming features - I'd be hard pushed to tell you anything about the remixes of Korea and Change (in the House of Flies) and I'm literally listening to the second one right now. It feels like a fucking relief when Squarepusher doesn't do away with the guitars in Pink Maggit - I'm always desperate to hear a guitar ever since they disappeared in Feiticeira (of course, he punishes us by distorting Chino for no reason other than he had to do something to get his fee I guess).

So those are my thoughts on Black Stallion. I keep thinking back to when it announced and how naïve I was to have high hopes about it, which is ridiculous because it was a year ago, not something that happened in my youth. I should have known I'd hate a remix album, I hate almost all remixes of rock music. With very few exceptions, they're all terrible. I guess that remix album of Explosions in the Sky's All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone was good, but I feel like the remixers were peers, rather than intentionally different. Why did I think this was going to be good? Maybe because the original album was so great, I figured how could anyone make it sound bad. Well, now I know.

I never thought I'd be writing about the 20th anniversary version of White Pony and have had such bad things to say, let alone to have written six paragraphs without talking much about the eleven songs that changed my life back in the year 2000. As written about on here many years ago, I have an original pressing of White Pony on vinyl, so I didn't need to buy this to have a copy of the album I love so much on vinyl. I love that album, I think I always will. It was special, unique and the peak of so many things. I still love Deftones, but I don't think I've loved them more than when this album came out. It felt important and we were lucky enough to be right there at the right time to watch it unfold.

So, original White Pony and dubious-at-best Black Stallion aside, what else is there to say? Well, still more! For one, there's amazingly little here for a 20th anniversary version. For the prices they're charging, you'd want more for sure - would it have killed them to throw in The Boy's Republic from the limited edition cd? They could even have put the Back to School EP on vinyl and that would have been exciting (although I appreciate their animosity to that particular release). Demos, live songs, literally any other material would have been welcome. In all the various versions of this release, you just got the same 22 songs. I can't believe there aren't fascinating curios from the era that fans would have lapped up (and all of them would have been better than Black Stallion). The deluxe edition includes a book with some notes from the band about the songs (well, one comment per song. Again, more would've been nice) and a lot of photos. 

One thing that particularly bugs me about this release is that the regular 4LP version looks so much better than this one. I saw it in a shop the other day and thought "I wish I'd bought that one instead" (regardless of the price and content). The black and white art looks so much cooler than the silver and white here - it's really bold and impressive. I ordered this long before images of each one were available, so I wasn't to know. I don't like the idea of "regret" in general, and I certainly don't regret buying this one, but in hindsight I kinda wish I'd spent my money differently - I have White Pony on vinyl, so I could've just bought the cd version to hear Black Stallion; if I'd loved Black Stallion (ha!) I could've then bought the 4LP and still have money to spare. Oh well, you live and you learn.

Format: 4x12", book, picture, picture sleeves

Tracks: 22

Cost: £110.99 new

Bought: Norman Records website

When: 26/02/21

Colour: Black

Etching: etching on side H

mp3s: cds

Radiator Hospital + Martha - Split

 

I should really like Martha more than I actually do. I love ONSIND and have done for years, but this is the only Martha record I own (and that's only really because I got it as part of the Specialist Subject subscription I had for a couple of years). I've listened to all their albums and each time thought "yeah, it's nice, but I don't love it". I'm clearly missing something because everyone I know loves them way more than ONSIND and they've had what appears to be far more success as a foursome too.

I can see the appeal for sure. Chekhov's Hangnail has a huge chorus and a big full sound. Mendable is actually much closer to ONSIND territory and I like it more. I guess what I always quite liked about ONSIND was that weren’t a rock band, but wrote songs that definitely worked as rock songs. The last time I saw them was effectively the Martha line-up (I think) playing an ONSIND set and it was incredible. Maybe I just need to see Martha for it to all fall into place.

I don't really remember having any opinions on Radiator Hospital before, but I'm quite enjoying them now. I can’t put my finger on what it reminds me of (frustratingly) - the singer's very nasal voice is very reminiscent of something, but for the life of me I can't think who. The final song, Dark Sand, has some extra vocals which do break things up quite nicely and adds a lot to the song. Good effort squeezing three songs onto one side of a 7" playing at 45rpm - I don't think I've ever put this record on at the right speed the first time - I always think "three songs must mean 33rpm".

Format: 7", insert
Tracks: 5
Cost: £5 new
Bought: Specialist Subject Records
When: 08/10/15
Colour: Mint green
Etching: Side A: "Put the kettle on" Side B: "Sexy willy riff"
mp3s: Download code

Muncie Girls - Picture of Health

 

I only own this 7" because it was included in my Specialist Subject subscription. I like Muncie Girls, but not enough to bother buying 7" singles of theirs. That said, it turns out I have nearly everything they've released, so maybe I am a collector? The a-side is from their last album, Fixed Ideals. It's a strong song with a huge, catchy chorus. But it'd be more than sufficient for me to enjoy it on the LP  alone (which was also part of the subscription, although I would have bought that regardless). The b-side, Rain, is a perfectly nice song, but less memorable. Nice poster sleeve.

Format: 7", poster sleeve

Tracks: 2

Cost: £5 new

Bought: Specialist Subject Records

When: 14/06/18

Colour: Black

Etching: None

mp3s: Download code

Pale Angels - Strange Powers

 

I genuinely wasn’t sure what speed to play this record at just now - it didn’t sound right at either. Turns out it was 45. I guess this record came out after the Four Live Songs 7", although both were in 2014 at some point. I think this is a live EP recorded at a studio in Amsterdam - none of the songs are on the albums. It's far faster and more punk-rock than anything else they've recorded - the grunge vibes are barely apparent at all.

The final song, Romantic Depression, is the best by far and worthy the cost of the 7" alone. La Esquina is so short that it’s nearly taken me longer to write this sentence than to listen to the song. It's a nice enough record, but probably not essential

Format: 7"

Tracks: 4

Cost: £5 new

Bought: Specialist Subject Records

When: 05/12/14

Colour: Black

Etching: None

mp3s: Download code

Pale Angels - Four Live Songs

 

When I bought the first Pale Angels album, I figured I'd pick up the two 7"s that Specialist Subject had as well. It'd been nine months since I'd seen them and been really pleasantly surprised at how good they were, and the fact they were basically a grunge band and not a punk band. I'm not sure why it took me so long. I've got a feeling I had a discount to use with Specialist Subject so put in an order for a bunch of things. Either that, or I was just in the mood to spend some money.

The four songs here make up nearly half of the songs on their debut, but these were recorded live on a UK tour in December 2013. The quality, as you'd expect (for a number of reasons) varies from charmingly shit to just shit - Mama sounds like it was recorded on a dictaphone cassette, and it sounds like Reza was playing drums on a table; the "woo-oohs" near the end sound amazing though. I get the desire to get some songs out there, but I can't believe these were the best four live recordings from that tour unless they were the only four live recordings from that tour. Slow Dance is great though - pure Nirvana, but brilliant for it. Slow Jangle has a nice build up to a satisfying beat.

Anyway, it's a nice little package - white vinyl and the sleeve is printed on black card and numbered (mine is 124/143). It also comes with a zine of tour photos, which is nice. I hadn't realised that the cover of the Strange Powers 7” was shot in the Exchange until looking through there. 

Format: 7", zine, numbered (124/143)

Tracks: 4

Cost: £5 new

Bought: Specialist Subject Records

When: 05/12/14

Colour: White

Etching: None

mp3s: None

Jena Berlin - This is Yours as Much as it is Mine

I bought this record having never actually listened to Jena Berlin. I was, and still am, a huge Restorations fan and they added a bunch of old releases to their website a while back, so I took the opportunity to stock up on a few bits. Most excitingly, they had the Little Elephant session 12", but they also had this 7" and the album by the band that a few of them were in before Restorations by the of name Jena Berlin. I figured it was worth a punt, so I bought both.

It's impossible to listen to without comparing it to Restorations, which is probably unfair - everything about it sounds so much more naive and scrappy; Restorations always sounded so sure of their sound and somehow older because of it. I don't want to use the words "mature" and it's loaded negative "immature" because it'd be doing Jena Berlin a disservice, but it's hard for those words to not pop into your mind. Restorations always felt (to me, at least) as an older-person's punk band. Jena Berlin sounds like the music they made as teenagers in comparison - there's so much energy and a slightly metal-tinged edge in places (Motion Sickness on the album jumps through a bunch of different styles, but kinda works; Oh God on this 7" is even more unexpectedly metal). For reasons I can't quite put my finger on, it reminds me of a lot of the bands we used to see in South Wales - not even in musical style, maybe it's the cheaper production or youthful energy. But there are hints of Restorations in there, along with about a hundred other influences.

As a result, I always think "I'd rather be listening to Restorations" when I play it, so I can't say I've ever listened to it purely on it's own merits. If you've thought "I wish Restorations played faster punk with a hint of metal" then you should probably check out Jena Berlin.

Format: 7", folded screen-printed sleeve
Tracks: 2
Cost: £7.70 new
Bought: Band's website
When: 03/08/17
Colour: Red
Etching: none
mp3s: download code