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