This record is a bit of an oddity in my collection, in that it's a shameless bootleg of an album that was never pressed on vinyl. I largely avoid buying bootlegs for all the usual reasons (quality, ripping off the band, they just feel wrong, etc) but I still bought this one despite knowing full-well that it was a bootleg; I'm not entirely sure why.
The weekend before last I was in Manchester visiting my friend Aled and going to see Neutral Milk Hotel. Sunday turned into a pretty-much perfect day - I went record shopping in the morning, spent the afternoon in some nice pubs drinking beer in the sun, ate "Manchester's best burger" and saw Neutral Milk Hotel for the first time (in a very lovely venue). The midnight bus ride back to Oxford followed by a full day at work took away from the enjoyment a little, but it was all good. My record shopping saw me visit three shops: Piccadilly Records, Vinyl Exchange and Vinyl Revival. The last of the three, Vinyl Revival, I knew as soon as I walked in wasn't going to be great. This happens a lot - I walk into a record shop and instantly know there isn't going to be much for me. There are usually over-full boxes of knackered 1960's LPs and a "metal" section that contains nothing released later than 1989. Vinyl Revival had that vibe, but did have one box of fairly recent albums that weren't in horrendously shitty condition. I felt guilty not buying anything (which is becoming a problem) and, in the box of not-shit records, was this bootleg copy of 10,000 Days. Interestingly, he also had a bootleg of Lateralus and a small handful of other tempting, mostly-bootleg albums. At £20 I should probably have left it behind, but unless it ever gets a proper vinyl release (which it might do given how strong the reissue market is these days) I figured I'd never get another copy. Plus the shit-record-store guilt. So I bought it.
Addressing the bootleg issue first, the quality here isn't too shitty at all. Maybe a more trained ear could pick any flaws out, but it sounds fine to me. The only times you really notice that it's a bootleg are on the run-off groove (which makes quite a racket) and on the rough edges to the vinyl when you turn it over. The sleeve looks pretty decent, albeit quite minimal - the cd of 10,000 Days had quite the fancy packaging. The back of the record says "For promotional use only", but I've been around too long to fall for that.
10,000 Days is Tool's most recent release, which is ridiculous when you recall that it came out 8 years ago. I was living in Australia at the time and that feels like a lifetime ago already. I remember going into town the week it came out to buy the cd and having a very excited conversation with some guy I half-knew about how good it was. A few weeks later I left Australia and saw Tool play Roskilde Festival, a memory that's surprisingly fresh in my mind. It's a lot heavier than the two albums that came before it and, at times, almost sounds more like The Melvins than it does Tool. A lot of the quirks that featured on Lateralus (songs designed to be played at the same time, Fibonacci rhythms) are missing and replaced with huge riffs. I kind of miss those little oddities, but sometime it's nice to appreciate a band for the talented musicians they are. Highlights for me are Vicarious, The Pot and Rosetta Stoned but Tool really cut out the filler here and squeezed in a lot of strong songs. Makes me hope they come out of their slumber soon.
Format: Double 12"
Tracks: 11
Cost: £20 new
Bought: Vinyl Revival, Manchester
When: 18/05/14
Colour: Transparent red
Etching: none
mp3s: no
