Jane's Addiction - Nothing's Shocking

In 2018 it's easy to be dismissive of Jane's Addiction - on the surface, there's a lot that hasn't aged well, but probably no more than most bands from LA at the same time. Sure, the reunions and reunion albums (yes, plural, apparently) probably didn't help, but if you ignore all of that, they released two landmark albums. I wrote about Ritual de lo Habitual five years ago, but kept forgetting to write about Nothing's Shocking.

There's a very good chance I've not listened to this album in the years in between; if I had I would have remembered how great it is and written about it straight away. The second those amazingly uplifting guitars hit in Up the Beach I would have been mentally writing paragraphs after paragraphs about it. Over the 15 years I've had this album I've periodically had this same thought: Ocean Size might be the biggest riff ever. I mean, literally the-size-of-an-ocean huge. The production is incredible (this was recorded in 1988) and it does everything to possible to make you focus on the sheer size of that riff. I like Up the Beach as an opener, but can you imagine if they'd just opened it up with Ocean Song? People wouldn't have known what hit them.

Nothing's Shocking is a funny one - there are songs that in my mind are less essential, but actually all have their charms - Summertime Rolls takes a little too long to get going but I do love where it ends up - I think I even used to put it on mixtapes; Idiots Rule ends up being this jazz explosion but starts as something almost throwaway; and Ted, Just Admit It builds in an almost post-rock style that was a world apart from anything they'd written before. Of course there's also Mountain Song and that bassline - a song that would dominate any album that didn't already have Ocean Size on it. Snapcase did a cover of it which worked well. I think Sepultura covered it too. It's a classic.

Jane Says was, as mentioned before, my introduction to Jane's Addiction, although I was used to the live version from Kettle Whistle being played on MTV. I was excited to hear the original version when I bought this album - I'd found a copy of Kettle Whistle a few months beforehand, which quenched my thirst for the song (and introduced me to demos of Ocean Song and Mountain Song). I like it, but not as much as the live version - the steel drums are far quieter in the mix. I'm still a little bitter that I've never seen them play it live - at Reading in 2002 they had the steel drums by the side of the stage but didn't play them; they cancelled their set last minute at Reading 2011 and when I saw them in Brixton they were playing Ritual in whole. I might have to accept that I'll never see it.

If I had to say which Jane's album was the best (no one is asking, but I like to ponder these questions) I'd be torn. Ritual was the first I heard and I spent a lot if time listening to it in the two years before getting Nothing's Shocking; I love it and all its strangeness. On the other hand, Nothing's Shocking has the big stand-alone songs - Ocean Size, Mountain Song and Jane Says; when I think of the best Jane's songs, I think of those songs. But maybe that answers the question itself - Ritual is the better album, but Nothing's Shocking has the songs. Either way, both are important and excellent.

Format: 12"
Tracks: 10
Cost: £9 new
Bought: Selectadisc, Nottingham
When: 20/02/03
Colour: Black
Etching: None
mp3s: None

Manic Street Preachers - Know Your Enemy

Know Your Enemy is 16 songs and over an hour long, but somehow they managed to squeeze it onto one piece of vinyl. It was released in 2001, which was probably the lowest point in vinyl's popularity, so it was presumably something of an afterthought. I stumbled across this copy in Selectadisc in Nottingham three years later, where it had been sat neglected all that time, for an incredible £4 (vinyl still wasn't that popular in 2004 either, it seems). It was in perfect condition and I was very pleased to add it to my collection, especially at that price. It has since been reissued on 180-gram vinyl, but I can't help but wonder if that adds nothing when the songs are so tightly packed; the grooves have to be so shallow to accommodate the runtime. Ideally I'd say it needs a double LP reissue - fingers crossed. The cover of McCarthy's We Are All Bourgeois Now is sadly, but understandably, omitted. It's a shame, because it's a great bonus track.

Know Your Enemy was the first album that came out after I became a huge Manics fan - the previous album being the one that got me into them. I was a pretty nerdy teen, so wanted to hear the album as a complete album on the day it came out - I'd daydreamed about how cool it would have been to sit down and play Generation Terrorists or The Holy Bible in whole the day they came out and wanted that for this album at least (I can't say I've done the same for every album since, but most). I walked into town after after school on Monday 19th March 2001 and bought my copy on cd for £12.99. Somewhere I still have the receipt. I paid in exact change, because I somehow thought that was important. Like I said, nerdy teen. I then got the bus home, went up to my room, lay on the bed and placed the left speaker of my hifi next to my left ear, the right next to my right and hit play.

I'd made a point of not hearing the singles Found That Soul and So Why So Sad before the album came out. There was a small piece in Kerrang! Magazine about the album that I purposely didn't read until I'd heard the album. I wanted nothing to possibly alter my enjoyment of the record as a complete work. Friends had heard the new singles and had the fairly-standard opinions that Found That Soul was great and So Why So Sad wasn't, but I couldn't really avoid hearing something about it.

At the time, I enjoyed it. I remember hearing songs I thought were really good, and the band showing more sides to their songwriting style than they had previously. I wasn't blown away, which in itself was something of a let down. Perhaps I'd built up too much anticipation for it - it's worth noting that White Pony came out the year before so had given me the excitement of the first new album from a band I loved that had proved to be seminal. Given how strong The Masses Against the Classes had been, I think I was justified in hyping it up so much. The influence of that song was strong throughout - the album had far more fuzz than they'd ever used and it was a world away from the clean production of This is My Truth Tell Me Yours, probably intentionally. I suspect that change wrecked havoc with their career, at least in the eyes of the record label; a slick, clean follow-up would have been so easy, but so un-Manics.

17 years later, I can't say it's gone down in history as one of their greats. There are some really strong songs (Found That Soul, Wattsville Blues, Freedom of Speech Won't Save My Children - seems that I love the songs where they found their inner grunge band), but none that have become absolute classics in my opinion; when I see the band and they don't play anything from this album, I don't walk away wishing they had. There are some singles that did little for me initially but have become songs I do really enjoy (Ocean Spray, Let Robeson Sing) and some oddities that I quite enjoy (Royal Correspondent). There are also a lot of other songs - I'd struggle to even say whether there was a Manics song called Dead Martyrs or The Convalescent let alone tell you they were album songs and not b-sides. The funny thing is that Dead Martyrs has a huge chorus that I'd completely forgotten about.

I don't think culling any songs would have saved it. It's probably the most inconsistent Manics album (Nicky and the fuzzed-up Wattsville Blues being followed by the faux-70's Miss Europa Disco Dancer might be one of the strangest pairing of songs on any album). Over the years that followed, they tried being a few different bands but the albums stuck to those individual themes more consistently. I feel Resistance is Futile might by the first time in the 20th century that they've fully committed to doing what they do best without trying to do/be anything else (and it works - more on that another time). This album is the polar opposite of that.

A lot of this sounds negative, but I do like this album. I don't play it often, but it's an interesting moment in their history. 

Format: 12", picture sleeve

Tracks: 16

Cost: £4 new

Bought: Selectadisc, Nottingham

When: 15/03/04

Colour: Black

Etching: none

mp3s: no

System of a Down - Steal This Album!

System of a Down were one of the bands you had to like if you were into nu-metal around the year 2000. They somehow were the edgy, cool band to like, especially if it was before their second album came out. The first one, released in 1998, felt like the closest thing to an "underground hit" that the genre had, at least amongst the people I knew (which is obviously bollocks in hindsight, but felt like it at the time. Like I've said many times, the early 2000's was a dangerous time to be a teenager). Their second album, Toxicity, came out in 2001 and suddenly they were everywhere.

I got a copy of the first album in 2001, just weeks before Toxicity came out, but I'd borrowed it from a friend earlier and made a cassette copy, so knew the songs very well. On top of that, I'd bought a copy of a limited edition tour cd from a distro that a guy someone had met at a record fair was running – it had three of the album tracks twice each, the studio version and a live recording. Toxicity dropped the day after they played a great set at Reading Festival on the main stage, almost certainly winning them many more fans (I distinctly remember the maniacal look in the bassist's eyes as they walked out on stage to a song about how they're all on drugs). An enterprising record store owner who routinely had a stall at the festival stayed open until midnight to sell copies of Toxicity and Iowa, the new Slipknot album released on the same day; they must have made a killing with that festival audience.

SOAD enjoyed a lot of success from Toxicity, especially from the single Chop Suey!, which became an instant classic in rock clubs all over the country. Then they had the awkward follow-up, the difficult second album (except, in this case, the difficult third album). In 2002 they released Steal This Album!, an album I always believed to be a b-sides/rarities album, but I've just read online that it was more along the lines of leftovers from Toxicity, or even tentatively a sequel to the album. Either way, it wasn't billed as a regular album, so I certainly never listened to it as such.

The cd was released with four different designs on the cd itself, which given that it didn't have a sleeve was basically the cover of the album. I bought the one with the skull on it, which was my favourite of the lot at the time – I think the shop had at least one of each. A few months later I was in Nottingham after an open day at Lancaster University, and found this double picture disc of the album for a bargain £9.50. It was appealing in itself, but I liked that each side had one of the four covers on; it made me feel better about having picked just one of them on cd. That price seems like even more of a bargain given that copies on Discogs are now around £75.

As an album, I remember liking it less than the first two, but that was almost to be expected, given that it wasn't an album proper. A.D.D. was always the highlight and still has a huge chorus. It could have been a huge song had it been on either of the first two albums, although that awkward transition between the verse and the chorus probably needed some more work. Otherwise, there were some nice enough songs (Highway Song has the second best chorus on the album) and a few slower moments (good ones, like Mr Jack and unnecessary ones, like Roulette). A common theme was one of half-heartedness, or incompleteness - Chic 'n' Stu and I-E-A-I-A-I-O both had that fast-paced singing that Serj could so uniquely do, but piss-poor lyrics; Boom was a political song with none of the subtlety they'd shown in the past. All in all, an odd collection, but a nice enough record to own.

Format: Double picture disc 12", insert
Tracks: 16
Cost: £9.50 new
Bought: Selectadisc, Nottingham
When: 20/02/03
Colour: Picture disc
Etching: none
mp3s: no

Unwritten Law - Elva

This album is just Very Bad. I don't think I've ever taken any real enjoyment from it. Every now and again, if I'm in a particularly shitty toilet in a bar or pub, I think to myself "I really hope I don't die here; I'd be so embarrassed for people to know that this was the last place I was alive". Listening to Unwritten Law in 2017, I'm thinking "god, I hope I don't die listening to this; I'd be so embarrassed for people to know this was the last music I heard". What if people thought the last music I heard was so important to me that I wanted it played at my funeral. What a shitty funeral it'd be, soundtracked to this album. Urgh. If you're reading this, I didn't die listening to Unwritten Law (at least, intentionally) so that's good.

When I was at school, we pretty much all had copies of each other's cds collections on tape or minidiscs. Nick had Unwritten Law's third, self-titled album, and I remember having a minidisc of it (in fact, I still do, but either my minidisc player is broken, or all of my minidiscs have broken themselves). I guess I enjoyed that album at the time, but I couldn't tell you much about it. I was never a huge fan of that California-punk, and it'd be a long time before I started listening to other genres of punk.

A few years later, I was in Nottingham and found this for £4 in Selectadisc. I bought so many records in there that day that I was putting some back because I couldn't carry them all. Luckily, I can't remember what I put back, because I'd almost certainly be kicking myself. It's hard to imagine what could've been less enjoyable than this. According to Wikipedia, Unwritten Law made a conscious choice to move away from punk towards a more "accessible hard rock" sound. I wish they'd put that on the fucking sticker, rather than boasting about two singles I now know to be shit.

There are many crimes on this album, but one of the worst is the first song - Mean Girl is the worst song on the album, and opens the album for reasons I can't fathom. Up All Night isn't terrible in comparison - it's probably not a good song, but compared to the opener it's quite the relief. There are other lows (Actress, Model... is appalling) and some moments that aren't as shit as everything else, but it's all relative. It's also far too long. In two words: stupid and pointless.

Format: 12", insert
Tracks: 17
Cost: £4 new
Bought: Selectadisc, Nottingham
When: 15/03/04
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: no

Korn - Life is Peachy

As I've mentioned a few times before, the early 2000's was a dangerous time to be a teenage boy; nu-metal was just too appealing. I take comfort in the fact that Deftones proved to be a band grown from that scene that you could love well into your 30's (and beyond, I hope). I'm not saying this (just) because it's the acceptable thing to say, but they always were my favourite from those days - the finest example of what that genre had to offer, and that it wasn't all shit.

Not everything was so good, and Korn, certainly in hindsight, feel like the exact opposite of Deftones, despite the fact the two of them were credited with the dubious honour of starting the nu-metal genre. While Deftones have stayed relevant and excellent, Korn went the other way and it's almost impossible to take any enjoyment from them in your 30's; it was touch-and-go in your late teens to be perfectly honest.

I bought into the whole Korn thing, but even 16-year-old-me had my doubts. Blind is and was a huge song, but the rest of the self-titled debut is utterly terrible. At the time I was incredibly put off by the idea of a grown man crying about his daddy issues on their major label debut. I later discovered they were all off their heads on crystal meth, which makes a lot of things make sense, but you like to think at some point, someone, somewhere was sober enough to say "is this really how we want to finish the album?". It’s reassuring to know that, even though my musical taste had some very dodgy parts at that time, I was able to draw a line; Jonathan Davis crying on record was far on the other side of that line back then, and that's something. However, I didn't hear the whole album until much later, having been introduced to Blind by the live version on the Woodstock 1999 cd my friend Johnny had. I was already bought in by the time I heard the man cry.

Over the course of five months, I got copies of Follow the Leader (the album which, in hindsight, was clearly the strongest in terms of hits), Issues, the self-titled album then Life is Peachy. After being disappointed by the self-titled album I was pleasantly surprised by Life is Peachy; in my teens, I considered it my favourite Korn album. Now, in my 30's, it’s slightly disconcerting to think that I once had a favourite Korn album, but I was once that guy and I guess I wouldn't be here if I hadn't been. So maybe I should be pleased I once had a favourite Korn album? No, that's too far; it's a thing that happened, that is all.

A year after I got Life is Peachy on cd, they released Untouchables, which I knew at the time was shit. It was 2002 and Rival Schools had just entered my life, setting it onto a far more respectable (and enjoyable) trajectory. However, in 2004 I found this copy of Life is Peachy on vinyl in Selectadisc in Nottingham for a mere £6. I was long out of my nu-metal phase, but decided it was a good purchase - it had been my favourite Korn album after all, and that felt like something.

Needless to say, I've not listened to Korn in any way in a very long time. In fact, given this was my last Korn purchase in 2004, I'm going to say it's been at least a solid 10 years since any of these songs have graced (that feels like the wrong word) my ears. How has Korn aged? Terribly, of course. Life is Peachy lacks the huge singles the albums either side had, and listening to it now, the songs I thought were highlights at the time really don't stand out as much as I remember. Perhaps I just rated it so highly to be different. Good God was always my favourite, and it stands out a bit here. Mr Rogers and Wicked were also ones I thought highly of back in the day. It's hard to write now that "they're still good songs" because they're not, so I won't (sorry Chino). The opening duo of Twist and Chi sound pretty bad, and the one with all the swearing is mindless. People always talked about the bass sound Korn had, but quite frankly Jonathan Davis is so ridiculously high in the mix that it's hard to hear anything else.

Luckily, this is the only time I'll have to write about Korn on here. It also probably signifies the last time I'll intentionally listen to them; I really can't see any scenarios in my near-future where I'll find myself listening to them. In a way, it's a bit sad - they were a small part of my formative years - but I can easily still have those memories whilst listening to something that's actually good.

Format: 12"
Tracks: 14
Cost: £6 new
Bought: Selectadisc
When: 15/03/04
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: no

Audioslave - Audioslave

Can you remember the excitement around this album when it was announced? Good lord, it was crazy. Let's forget about how the album actually turned out for a moment and focus on that excitement. Rage Against the Machine had been the biggest name of the late 1990's and Soundgarden were one of the biggest names of the the early part of that decade. Chris Cornell had long been one of my favourite singers and still has one of the best voices in rock. The music Rage Against the Machine had put out was hugely important and I still get that same feeling when I listen to them now, more than 20 years after they started. How could a band consisting of Chris and Rage (minus Zach) not be great?

Before the album came out the video for Cochise did the rounds on MTV and it was awesome - the band playing on top of some structure in the desert with fireworks going of all around them. If the excitement levels weren't already raised high enough then that video pushed them even higher. I rushed out and bought the cd the day it came out. I was at college then so I used my free periods to go home, turn the hifi up dangerously loud and play the album. (I picked this copy up a few months later - I was still into it enough to spend £15.50 on it, which was a lot for an LP back then.)

It started with a great opening duo, the single Cochise and Show Me How to Live, which is still huge - the lines "Is this the cure or is this a disease?" is one of the greatest pre-chorus breaks that hard-rock did in the 2000's. There are some slower, heavier songs like What You Are which work well - think Mailman from Superunknown - and some slower ones like Like A Stone, Shadow on the Sun and I am the Highway which I think could have easily been culled. They're nice enough songs and show off Chris's voice well, but aren't what I (or most other listeners I suspect) were wanting to hear from this band. Had it been a Chris Cornell solo album then it would have been great (and would have shat all over his actual solo albums). There are late-album treats like Exploder and Light My Way but they often get forgotten in the expanse of the album.

My main complaints with the album was that it was far too long. It's funny, but as I've got older my"ideal album length" has changed. It used to be twelve songs in 45 minutes, but these days I'm finding the nine songs is strong length. Either way, 14 songs and an hour long is too much. As I've realised is often the case with super-groups (a term I don't think existed in my vocabulary in 2002) is that no one will tell them when to stop, or that maybe some of the songs aren't that great. The result tends to be album that are too long and don't really reflect any of the artist's best work.

Is Audioslave as good as Soundgarden? No, of course not. Some of the songs could make it into a top 20 Chris Cornell songs, but not the top ten. Is Audioslave as good as Rage? Again, not a chance. The musicianship is as good here, but it's more traditional hard-rock, which isn't what people listened to Rage for. The band are still tight as hell, but I don't think any of the guys really shine here (Tom gets some very short solos on What You Are and Bring 'em Back Alive).

I saw Audioslave at Roskilde Festival in 2005. I remember it fondly, although mainly because they played a bunch of Soundgarden and Rage songs. Chris even treated us to a solo performance of Black Hole Sun which was incredible. I hadn't seen Soundgarden at that point, so it was really special. Needless to say, his ability to rap like Zach de la Rocha was sub-par, but I'd seen Rage before so I'd already had my fix of hearing those songs how they're supposed to be played.

As is often the case with these blog posts, I've not listened to Audioslave for a long time before putting the needle on the record today. I'm surprised how well it stands up. I mean, I don't find myself wanting to listen to this sort of music much these days, but it's good. Plus, it's so deeply rooted in nostalgia (for itself but also for Soundgarden and Rage) and that early excitement it's had not to smile a little and have a little headbang.

Format: Double 12", gatefold sleeve, picture sleeves

Tracks: 14

Cost: £15.50 new

Bought: Selectadisc, Nottingham

When: 20/02/03

Colour: Black

Etching: none

mp3s: no

Thursday - War All the Time

War All the Time was the beginning of the turn against Thursday for a lot of people I knew. They'd blown us away on Full Collapse and Five Stories Falling but I remember everyone disliking War All the Time. I think the general thinking was it was too polished and smooth; one acquaintance particularly hated the single Signals Over the Air with quite some passion.

Whilst it didn't grab me as much as Full Collapse, I still thought War All the Time was a great album. I concede that it's smoother in places, but that kinda works for Thursday - they didn't need to be the heaviest band in that genre for me. What War All the Time showed was that they could write great songs without them needing to be overly-shouty screamo/post-hardcore. And those moments were still there - Division St. could have fit just as easily onto Full Collapse as it does here. The piano-led This Song Brought to You by a Falling Bomb would sound thoroughly out-of-place on any earlier album but works beautifully here. Other highlights include For the Workforce, Drowning and Asleep in the Chapel and the title track in particular. As an aside, I had a Thursday t-shirt with some artwork for For the Workforce, Drowning which eventually became my running t-shirt. It almost soured a relationship before it even started because the girl in question thought less of me for being a Thursday fan (but she liked to think of herself as very cool - her Les Savy Fav t-shirt helped).

I got a copy of this album on cd for Christmas one year (the same year I got Waiting) and a few months later found this LP in Selectadisc in Nottingham for a very reasonable £10. I still listen to it a lot - it has a lot of fond memories for me.

Format: 12", booklet
Tracks: 11
Cost: £10 new
Bought: Selectadisc, Nottingham
When: 15/03/04
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: no

Pearl Jam - Vs.

I own many Pearl Jam albums on cd but this is the only one I have on vinyl. I was introduced to them at school by a friend named Johnny. He'd become a very big fan of theirs very quickly and I remember him getting very excited when Binaural came out in 2000. He lent me a copy of Ten and I quite enjoyed what I heard. I wasn't instantly blown away with a lot of the big singles on there, but I was particularly taken by Black (and, eventually, came around to liking the hits). I say he introduced to them to me, he introduced their music to me; they were already a name I knew but had no idea what they sounded like. The picture of them in the sleeve of Ten made me think they weren't going to be very cool, but he reassured me that they were a cool band.

I bought a copy of Ten on cd a short while later and followed that up with Binaural just after Riot Act came out. Binaural did very little for me and I became a bit sceptical of their more recent releases. I also bought a copy of No Code and began to wonder if Ten was a bit of a fluke in terms of Pearl Jam music I enjoyed. A little while later again I bought this copy of Vs. in Selectadisc in Nottingham for a relative bargain of £8. I never planned to have much of a Pearl Jam collection, I was just buying whatever cool vinyl I could get my hands on back then.

Vs. had more going for it than No Code, but still didn't grab me as much as Ten. Go and Animal are a strong opening duo but I always thought Daughter was too slow too soon and ruined the flow of the album for me. There are other highlights (in fact the opening duo on side 2 - Blood and Rearviewmirror - are great too) but there weren't the real highlights I was hoping for. Maybe it's because Ten was scattered with so many hit singles that every other album was always going to sound sub-par.

Buying Vs. made me realise I should stop buying Pearl Jam albums. They were always so cheap in record shops that I kept finding myself nearly buying them but I knew I wasn't very likely to enjoy them. It was quite a relief to skip past the Pearl Jam section in the shops without feeling the need to see how much their other albums were. I eventually broke my rule in 2013 when I found a brand new copy of their double-disc best of album in a charity shop in Clapham for £1. For that price it seemed rude not to and enough time had passed that I might get more out of it. Plus, I hoped at some level that just having the singles would be what I needed to like them more. The album is split over the two discs with the heavier songs on one and the softer on the second; unsurprisingly, the first disc gets much more play the second. I've not bought any more of their albums since then.

Format: 12", gatefold sleeve, picture sleeve
Tracks: 12
Cost: £8 new
Bought: Selectadisc, Nottingham
When: 15/03/04
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: no

One Minute Silence - Buy Now... Saved Later

One Minute Silence were, along with Pitchshifter, one of the most important bands of my middle-teenage years. Both bands made their first impression on me on a free cd given away with Kerrang! magazine - the now legendary (in my world at least) The Devil's Music Volume 1. Pitchshifter opened things up with Everything's Fucked, followed by my introduction to Henry Rollins (in the form of Rollin's Band), followed by One Minute Silence's Food For the Brain. That first 10 minutes changed my world in huge ways. My young mind didn't know what hit it.

That was more than half of my life ago, but it's a pleasant surprise that OMS's brand of Irish nu-metal has aged so well, although that might partly be due to the very firm place they hold in my heart. We saw them four times over three years - the most memorable was in the Astoria with Will Haven (featuring some terrifying circle pits) but I also fondly remember the last time, in an old church in Salisbury. I used to have so much fun throwing myself around at their shows - it's comforting to think that my youthful energy was not at all wasted.

I can't think when the last time I played this album was before today. I've played their third album once of twice in recent years and got moderate enjoyment out of it. However, Buy Now... Saved Later was always the classic. Their debut, Available In All Colours, had some huge songs (Brainspiller, South Central, Pig Until Proven Cop - I might have to give that album a play today too!), but didn't quite hit the same spot. I picked up a promo copy of BN...SL on cd (with alternative artwork) on holiday in the states when I was 16 but I already knew all the songs - Hugh had bought a copy a long time before and I had a very worn-down cassette of it.

I think the reason why OMS worked so well for me was that rare mix between quite smooth vocals, genuinely heavy music and a groove that you could dance (mosh) to. On top of that, there were occasional quieter moments (important for regaining one's breath in the pit), but they always exploded back into something heavy. I used to love hearing them play any of these songs, but it's worth calling out Rise and Shine, 1845, Food For the Brain, Fish Out of Water (what a side A), If I Can Change and A Day in the Light Of in particular. I loved trying to sing along to the fast-paced lyrics (with moderate success, probably adding to how knackered I was in the pit). Even the slower Words builds up to a hugely aggressive outro and closes the album in excellent style.

I picked up the LP during a trip to Selectadisc in Nottingham, which resulted in a number of incredible bargains - I was returning home after an open day at the university I'd go on to attend, but took a detour via Nottingham on the way. It was 2003 and clearly the staff there had decided that the only way to shift a OMS record was to price it at £2. I wonder how much more I would have paid for this album back then? I'm glad my desire to own everything on vinyl went so far back.

Format: 12", picture sleeve
Tracks: 14
Cost: £2 new
Bought: Selectadisc, Nottingham
When: 20/02/03
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: no

Cay - Nature Creates Freaks

Cay were the second band I ever saw play live (preceded by a band called Subcircus and followed by Feeder, who were headlining and the reason we'd gone to our very first gig). They also ended up being the first band I saw play twice, as they played early on the Sunday of Reading Festival in 2000. It's a strange that such accolades are for a band who ultimately didn't achieve very much.

In writing this, I wondered what happened to them after that second time I saw them, and Wikipedia tells me that drugs and infighting became their thing and then they kind of disappeared; a classic after-effect of a rise to fame too fast (they won Best British Newcomer at Kerrang!, as the sticker on the sleeve states). Most shocking to read was that the singer died five years ago after being hit by a train. I'd never really thought what might have happened to them after their brief fame until now, but it's sad that it all went quite so wrong.

I picked up this copy of their only album in Selectadisc in Nottingham for £1 (not the only British album from around that time I bought for £1, although Ideas Above Our Station was a much more significant record). It was 2003 and I'd already forgotten about Cay. I remember some friends becoming big fans when we saw them in 1999 and raving about the album. For £1 I figured it was rude to not at least check it.

The openers to each side - Better Than Myself and Neurons Like Brandy - were always the highlights back in the day and still hold up fairly well now. Princes & Princesses keeps the album moving, but the title track as the third song slows things down sooner than I think is ideal; it's got a reasonable chorus mind you. I remember Dragonfly being annoying back in the day - like they were trying to channel Sonic Youth but failing. Overall, there are a few songs that are more enjoyable than I remember but that are also a lot of annoying and too-slow moments (particularly on side-B) that ruin the flow for me. In short, there's nothing terrible about Nature Creates Freaks (except maybe the title) but there was also not enough to give the longevity to survive any amount of time.

Format: 12", picture sleeve
Tracks: 11
Cost: £1 new
Bought: Selectadisc, Nottingham
When: 20/02/03
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: no

The Offspring - Smash

Everyone has a copy of this album, don't they. It's an album that everyone knows backwards. The cool thing about Smash though is that creates instant good-times. I was driving with a colleague who got very excited to find this on my iPod - the next 40 minutes were far more fun than driving around the M25 should be. God knows that Bad Habit is a dangerous song to drive to, not just for the sentiment but also for the loss of concentration whilst everyone tries to remember the order of the swear words to sing along to the break.

Smash has so many huge songs - Nitro, Bad Habit, Genocide, Come Out and Play, Self Esteem, Not the One, Smash; that's a lot of highlights. The intro even deserves calling out for setting the scene so well.

I picked this album up along with a huge haul of records from Selectadisc Nottingham on my first visit there. I had found so many albums I wanted (and mostly at bargain prices) I found I was having to put some back because my arms were hurting. Smash made the cut - I knew it was a classic and an album I'd love to have in my collection. I had a few other Offspring albums on cd and had listened to Smash at various friend's houses over the years but didn't have a copy anywhere. I paid £5 for this, which is a bargain by anyone's measure.

Format: 12", insert
Tracks: 14
Cost: £5 new
Bought: Selectadisc, Nottingham
When: 20/02/03
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: no

Rage Against the Machine - Evil Empire

I suppose this was Rage Against the Machine's "difficult second album"; I certainly remember it being considered so back in the day. It was the start of 2000 when I properly got into Rage and by that point the three main albums had been released, with the covers album Renegades to appear a year later. We'd heard the self-titled album and everything we read told us that Evil Empire hadn't been so good but The Battle of Los Angeles was brilliant. Playing those albums now, I'd (controversially) say they're all as good as each other. Sure, RATM and LA have more of the big songs, but Evil Empire still packs a punch. I can see how people's viewpoints were different in 1996 and 1999, but here in 2013 Evil Empire is quite an incredible follow-up (despite taking four years to come out).

Evil Empire was the first RATM album I bought. I'd taped Hugh's copy of the debut album shortly after he bought it, but it was a year before I found the cd of Evil Empire in the MVC sale for £7 (I had way less disposable cash back then). A few months later I bought the other two albums too. It's funny how other people's opinions of music can affect yours - I remember thinking less of this album simply because I'd heard that other people didn't like it as much. It's a pretty irrational thing to do, but it happens all the time. I try not to read reviews of albums I'm excited about for that very reason, but sometimes it's the easiest thing to do. The other week I thought to myself that I should ask around to see if the Atoms for Peace album is actually any good before remembering that it's 2013 and I can probably find most of the songs on the internet and form an opinion of my own. Of course I haven't got round to doing that yet, but I can't afford to buy the album at the moment anyway, so it doesn't matter either way. 

Anyway, I bought this LP on a huge record buying binge in Selectadisc in Nottingham on a trip to the city to see The Paper Chase for the first time (I was living in Lancaster and Nottingham was the nearest Paper Chase show to me; my sister lived in Derby so I dragged her along and disguised the whole thing (badly) as a visit to see her). I bought a lot of vinyl that day including this one for £7, yet again. Like I said in the post about the self-titled album, I don't play Rage very often these days because I played them so much back in the day. It's been great fun spinning this album today though. I wonder if there'll after be a time when Rage doesn't getting my moving in my seat and rapping along. People of the Sun and Bulls on Parade were always the big hits on Evil Empire (and Down Rodeo had some of Rage's smartest lyrics), but Revolver and Without a Face are equally huge songs too.

Format: 12", picture sleeve

Tracks: 11

Cost: £7 new

Bought: Selectadisc, Nottingham

When: 15/03/04

Colour: Black

Etching: none

mp3s: no

My Vitriol - Finelines

I can probably count on one hand the number of times I've played this record in the last five years, but I remember a while back in the day when you couldn't move for hearing Always: Your Way. That song was huge and, playing it now, it's still a tune. My main memory of listening to the album when I was 16 was that the intro and Always: Your Way were great and the rest had nothing about it that really stood out.

I don't ever remember being a huge fan of the band, and I'm quite surprised to see that I paid £11 for the cd. That was a lot of money back then. I guess I was more into them than my memory suggests. When I found the LP for £4 on my second-ever trip to Selectadisc in Nottingham I already considered the album a minor classic from back-in-the-day and was happy to add it to my armful of records. It's probably been horribly neglected in my record collection - the cd/mp3s have always been at hand for those very occasional plays I've given Finelines since 2004. One of the many reasons I started this blog was because I felt I was neglecting some of my records, and by listening to them and writing about them I'd give them their dues.

So what am I getting out of this record this time around? Mostly memories of studying for GCSEs and playing Nintendo 64. Between those strange flashbacks, there are songs I'd forgotten about. Grounded and Losing Touch are still good tunes, and Infantile made me think of Deftones, something it never did back in the day. Both bands have their shoegaze influences, but My Vitriol had way too much pop about them, and I always felt Stephan's guitar gave the 'Tones their heavier side. My Vitriol's attempt at heavy on C.O.R. was always out of place. The instrumental Tongue Tied is pretty good too, and I wonder how they would have faired as an instrumental band (not that there's anything wrong with the singer's voice, but it gives a better chance to pull away from "normal" rock songs, and you get the impression they're trying to). It's the sort of album you'd expect to have a huge closing number, and whilst the short drum outro to Under the Wheels is nice, I think leaving it on Falling off the Floor would've been better.

At 16 songs, Finelines was always too long, despite four of them being filler tracks, but overall it's been nice playing it again. This has been a nice trip down memory lane.


Format: 12", picture inner
Tracks: 16
Cost: £4 new
Bought: Selectadisc, Nottingham
When: 15/03/04
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: no

The Cooper Temple Clause - See Through This and Leave

I remember buying this thinking "what an awesome idea". On paper a 7" boxset sounds fantastic - a nice variation on the LP - but in reality it means I have to get up eleven times rather than just once to turn the records over. Not that I'm complaining (well, just a little) because I do like this boxset a lot. See Through This and Leave is a cracking album and one I've been enjoying for more than 10 years now.

I'm reasonably sure the first time I heard of The Cooper Temple Clause was because they were supporting Muse on a tour. A lot of people at school were into Muse and went. I wasn't a Muse fan and so ignored The Cooper Temple Clause too. Somehow I ended up hearing them and realising they were actually pretty cool. I think I saw the video for Let's Kill Music (a song I still often put on mixtapes) or heard Panzer Attack on a free Kerrang! cd. I picked up the cd with a bonus disc of early songs for a bargain £9 in my local MVC not long after it came out. About a year later I was in Nottingham having visited Lancaster University the day before (university visits were always about record shopping in new cities for me) and found this boxset version for an even more bargainous £7 (everything in Selectadisc was cheap). I had already decided it was enough of a classic to warrant two copies, so picked it up.

The music is still exciting today. They were undoubtedly an indie band but had way more balls than most of the others at the time. The songs were heavy, messy and noisey (all things I enjoy) and there was a lot going on. Even listening to it now you notice hints of instruments that weren't there before. Did You Miss Me? makes for a fantastic start and has a brilliant level of arrogance to it (that certainly wouldn't have worked so well on anything but a debut album). The album had more than it's share of singles, but the two closers are truly the gems of the record; The Lake is a brooding beast and Murder Song explodes twice into the perfect, powerful outro the record deserves.

The band had a fair innings. Their second album was a sleeper-hit with me - it took a few years before I really got it and now I consider myself a big fan of it too. My friend Matt and I went to see them at university, one of the very few things we did with the "Rock Society", who we'd signed up with after cynically scorning everything at Freshers Fair but feeling we really should try. Neither of us could get on board with university societies, but the very occasional organised trips to gigs were a bonus. I bought a few singles from the third album but was even less into that at the time. Matt bought it and I enjoyed hearing it, although many years on and I'm yet to buy it. The band eventually called it a day a short while later. If they were to do what Hundred Reasons and Hell is for Heroes have done and reformed to play their debut album ten years later in full, I for one would be very excited. Man, 2002 was a strong year for music.

The box is numbered (#1387 for me) which is a nice touch. I'd have put the cd sleeve notes on the six 7" sleeves rather than the plain white sleeves they are in. To be honest, even the cd sleeve thrown in with the box would have been better than nothing at all. I once saw a Michael Jackson album on six 7" square picture discs where they made the picture of the cover when arranged in order; that was pretty cool. Still, what this boxset lacks in features like that, it makes for in being a truly excellent album.

Format: 6x7" boxset, numbered
Tracks: 11
Cost: £7 new
Bought: Selectadisc Nottingham
When: 20/02/03
Colour: Black
Etching: None
mp3s: No

Hell is For Heroes - The Neon Handshake

Last week tickets went on sale for a line-up that made me a little weak at the knees: Hundred Reasons, Hell is For Heroes and Cable, with the first two playing their classic debut albums in full. Clearly I wasn't the only one excited by this as tickets sold out in hours and they announced a second London show. I get quite excited by bands playing an album in full at the best of times, but add in the fact that Ideas Above Our Station and The Neon Handshake are two records I'm a huge fan of and you have a very large smile on my face!

A few years ago I wrote a list of my Top 50 Records of the 2000's, a list that I don't agree with entirely now but is largely accurate. The Neon Handshake just pipped End Transmission and came in at number 17, which should give you an idea of how much I love this album. (As a side note, I'm doing pretty well on seeing these albums played in full - a lot of them are turning 10 years old so bands seem to be playing them. So far I've seen IAOS, Full Collapse and Fever to Tell.)

I first heard HIFH on a Kerrang! cd before the album came out. There was a demo of Sick/Happy that might have been the highlight of the cd. It certainly stuck out regardless and made me aware of the band. My local HMV would get in a few 7"s from time to time and I picked up the singles from this album as they came out and bought the album (on cd) on release day. I immediately loved every second of it; there's not a bad song on there and it was just the sort of music I was into at the time - heavy but not metal. I'm still into it now. The whisper/break in Out of Sight is perfect and Five Kids Go is a stunning opener. Sick Happy and the singles are still massive (blog posts on them to come at some point) and the closer rounds it off very nicely. I can't fault it.

A year of so after it came out I found the LP for a bargain £4.50 in Selectadisc in Nottingham whilst visiting my sister. That store was great - so much vinyl and so many awesome albums in the sale. I've not been to Nottingham since so I have no idea if it's still there or still so great. The London one tends to be too pricey for me these days. I think I bought so much that day I had to put some records back because I couldn't carry them all. Anyway, it's a record I'm very glad to have in my collection. Red vinyl and numbered (#344). There's a slight bit on the top right of the sleeve where the price sticker took away the colour, but otherwise it's perfect.

I only got to see the band once, in Preston with The Lucky Nine supporting, but it was incredible. I'd missed them at Reading at least once and later realised my mistake. They were due to play Cardiff on their last ever tour but cancelled the last few shows. I think The Neon Handshake shows will make up for that. It was a shame they called it quits, because all three of their albums were incredibly strong. A few months ago a friend and I went to New Noise in Kingston and were slightly shocked by how few songs we knew (perhaps we're too old for clubbing!) but requested Hundred Reasons and HIFH. They played our requests back to back and I had a fantastic 7 minutes jumping around to I'll Find You and Five Kids Go (nearly accidentally head-butting some girl). At Banquet's Big Day Out I had the fun of seeing HR again and in November I get Hundred Reasons and Hell is For Heroes in one night, except this time I'll be jumping around to the bands instead of a DJ and it won't just be me and Sarah excited!

Format: 12", picture sleeve
Tracks: 12
Cost: £4.50 new
Bought: Selectadisc Nottingham
When: 15/03/04
Colour: Transparent red
Etching: none
mp3s: no