Joie De Vivre - We're All Better Than This

For all of my love of physical media, I buy quite a lot of music digitally. Bandcamp is obviously my favourite, but I also have a soft spot for a website called Soundsupply. Every couple of months, they pick 10 albums and release them as a digital bundle for $15. I've bought quite a few of them in time, and each one seems to have an album or two that I enjoy. This album was included in their 9th drop, and it probably gives you a hint as to what will come when I talk about this album at the end of this post that I felt the need to buy a physical copy as well. I have a bit of a bad habit of googling album titles and the word "vinyl". Usually this ends with staring at US webstores and weeping over the cost of shipping records, but this time I ended up finding a UK label who co-released the record and still had (still have) copies of the first pressing in stock for a rather ludicrously cheap £8. Few things make me happier than that.

So very green. I didn't even realise this album had ducks on the cover until I got this in the post - the tiny itunes thumbnail wasn't detailed enough for me to notice. I like it a lot though, the almost complete lack of anything in the water apart from the ducks is pleasing to me.

Yeah so it turns out they are big on ducks. The two-sided insert has ducks on both sides. What have ducks got to do with this album? I have no idea. The lyrics are great, and having them printed is always a plus to me.

Ohhhhh boy. I have no idea why I've never owned (possibly never even seen?) a translucent light blue record before but wow. This might be the nicest-looking single colour record I own. Absolutely gorgeous. This, as I previously mentioned, is from the first pressing. It's out of 350 and is described as "electric blue" by the labels that released it. I'd dispute that description - it's more a baby blue to me - but who cares when it looks this nice.

Yeah so I had this album digitally but still felt the need to seek out a vinyl copy. As a result, it should come as no surprise that I absolutely adore this album. It's a beautiful adventure in slow-paced twinkly emo, with poignant lyrics and brassy trumpets. When an album begins with the line "we all die alone, so why care so much about living with someone else" you know what you're getting yourself in for. It's introspective and melancholy, an album mired in the uncertainty of post-youth. It has burrowed its way into my head and into my heart, where I think it will stay for a while. Picking a highlight is difficult when the entire album is top notch, though it'd probably be the magnificent That Dude Leads A Depressing Life. This album is $3.50 on the Count Your Lucky Stars bandcamp. Go buy it. Get sad with it.