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