Running with the theme (British bands I got into when I was at school), here is Therapy?'s first mini-album/EP. The second gig I ever went to was Therapy? in Southampton University in February of 2000 (the first, for those interested, was Feeder in the same venue four months earlier and the third was Pitchshifter, relating back to yesterday's post again). Hugh suggested going to see them having, I assume, read about them in Kerrang! magazine (which was pretty much the only way we discovered bands back then). I think just the two of us went, having borrowed two of their albums from the library so that we at least knew some songs. We had The Yo-Yo's and Clutch supporting and I remember Clutch being particularly good (and the drummer going through a snare on a solo). Somewhere I still have my Suicide Pact, Your First Therapy? t-shirt, although time hasn't been it's friend.
Over the years that followed I picked up a handful of Therapy? albums with varying levels of success as far as my enjoyment went. For £3 I picked up the cassette of Nurse in a second hand shop in Boscombe which I still play now (on the rare occasion I'm near a tape deck) and still enjoy (especially Teethgrinder). A few years later I found this album in one of the second hand shops in Soho (along with a Dub War EP and on the same trip as the Blood Brothers album I wrote about the other week).
There may only be seven songs here, but they're all classic Therapy? noise-rock. Like Pitchshifter, they were doing something different with their music and not just playing straight-up metal, but where Pitchshifter embraced it, Therapy? let it slip and, in my opinion at least, let that edginess go. The plus-side however is that if you pick up an early Therapy? album there's always going to be something exciting going on. Highlights here are Meat Abstract (it would be years before I'd see Blade Runner and recognise the sample at the start), Animal Bones and Loser Cop. I think I might go and dig out that Nurse cassette now too...
Format: 12"
Tracks: 7
Cost: £3 second hand
Bought: Soho
When: 09/04/03
Colour: Black
Etching: Side A: "Ooops wrong planet" Side B: "Scare the hippies"
mp3s: no
