The World Is A Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid To Die - Whenever, If Ever

I've been waiting to do this post for a good while now. Getting a pre-order shipped from America to the UK that gets delayed due to pressing plant issues can leave you with quite a wait for a record (shout-out to The Speed Of Sound In Seawater's debut album, currently undergoing the same problems), but it's here now so I can swiftly forget about that.

The slightly out-of-focus man on this cover makes me feel a little like I've got cataracts, but I still like it a lot.

Slightly blurry inner sleeve as well. Mostly included to show you there are about a million people in this band, and one of them is called "Shitty Greg". This is something I am okay with.

Gorgeous record. Really, really nice. I like that the greens of the labels match the greens of the cover, and the record itself isn't a million miles off. As you can (possibly) tell, the inner sleeve has lyrics printed on the other side and that's a big plus for me (especially when they're great). In terms of pressing info, I believe this is the first pressing "clear with green smoke" out of 1000. Yeah, it's not particularly "smoky" but I still think it's lovely. Unfortunately I've seen the other colours from this pressing and, well, let's just say I'll be keeping an eye on ebay. Oh dear.

So let's talk about the album a little bit, because there's quite an interesting story around it. The album, as seems to happen too regularly these days, was leaked around a month before its release date. When this happens with bigger labels it sort of sucks but they can deal with it. When it happens to what is a big release for a small label like Topshelf, well then it's much more of an issue for them. To their credit though, Topshelf responded to this admirably. Rather than watching the album circle the internet for a month helplessly, they brought the digital release forward. It was made available to purchase on Bandcamp with an instant download, streamable on a whole number of places and anyone who had pre-ordered it was sent their download. This is the reason why I listened to the album, and the reason why I pre-ordered direct from Topshelf (also because the pre-order bundle included a lovely t-shirt). It was a proactive response from the label, and they get a lot of credit from me for reacting so well.

Of course, I wouldn't have bought it if it wasn't pretty good. It's more than that. It's amazing. This is my album of the year so far by quite a distance. It sets its stall out early doors, the intro track of blank #9 making way for the driving emotion of Heartbeat In The Brain. It took a long time for me to realise that emo isn't a bad thing (blame it on the metal of my youth), and this is Emo with a capital E. While that is an absolutely Okay Thing, TWIABP add little hints of post-rock and create a different beast. These are super-sized emotions, carried off into space by atmospheric guitars. Yet there is still pace to the album, the post-rock elements never feel forced or overpowering. The stand-out track from the album for most people will probably be closing track Getting Sodas, a huge track that culminates in the repeated lyrics of:

The world is a beautiful place, but we have to make it that way

Whenever you find home we'll make it more than just a shelter

And if everyone belongs there, it will hold us all together

And if you're afraid to die then so am I.

Which, let's not lie, is pretty spectacular. My favourite track though, comes 3 tracks earlier in the form of Ultimate Steve. Perhaps a spiritual sequel to an earlier EP track entitled Mega Steve, the track builds carefully and rhythmically then pauses momentarily and absolutely falls apart at the seams. The guitars crash around your head and the vocals come screaming in, I get goosebumps every time I hear it culminating in the collective shout of:

The world will destroy me

Our voices will flood rivers and valleys

The world will destroy me

I am the mountains crumbling.

It will take a lot for this to be topped as my album of the year. Even if you only have the slightest of interests in emo, you should listen to this.

Frightened Rabbit - Sing The Greys

I actually managed to forget I hadn't posted about this yet. It was, unsurprisingly, an instant buy from Avalanche as soon as I knew it existed. I can't even remember how much it was. Oops. This is the first time the first Frabbit album has been pressed on vinyl, which now means I have a complete collection of Frabbit albums on vinyl. This is something I am very happy about. Not entirely sure why it's been pressed in all honesty, but I'm okay with that.

This is probably one of my favourite album covers. Ever. It's so beautifully simple, and it feels perfect for the album it contains. Even better as a 12 inch square.

This inner sleeve prompted an audible gasp from me as I first pulled it out. Beautiful. There's a t-shirt with this design on it, I feel that may be a purchase in the near future.

One day Frabbit will release some coloured vinyl and I will be overjoyed. I mean come on guys, Sing The Greys on grey vinyl would've been just too perfect. Alas, it wasn't to be. Plain black this time, but with a lovely multicolour label to reduce the disappointment. It goes without saying that this label matches the design of the CD version of this album because Frabbit understand the importance of consistency. Love them.

You probably already realise that I love this album, but let's talk about it anyway. I find myself getting annoyed by the lack of appreciation this album seems to get, people only seem to go backwards as far as The Midnight Organ Fight and then stop. Maybe they get distracted by how utterly incredible TMOF is (as I've explained before), but it's really worth diving further backwards. Sing The Greys serves as more than just to show someone "how the band began", it easily stands up against the rest of the band's output. The lyrics on this album are, as with every Frabbit album, absolutely sublime. The whole thing begins with the line "what's the blues when you've got the greys" which is a pretty good indicator of what is to come. I'm not going to talk you through every song, because Scott Hutchison himself has already done that and mine would be far less informative. All I can tell you is that I love it, I really do. The highlight for me is the shuffling melody of Behave! and its talk of not knowing how to act around someone. That being said, it only rises marginally above the title track, Go-Go Girls, Snake and Be Less Rude in terms of enjoyment. And then we've covered almost half of the album.

To leave you with, here is the altered version of the Fat Cat logo that appears on this record (and, I have since noticed, the CD version too). Man, I adore this band.

Purity Ring - Shrines

Continuing from the previous post, here's another part of that Norman order. This was something I'd been meaning to get for a long while, the reduced price just made it an unavoidable purchase.

Weird cover. Why is that girl covering the lamb with her hair? Why has Rayman lost his arms to this picture? Not a clue.

It's a gatefold, so there's more of the same drawings inside. I don't really have anything more to contribute about them because I do not understand.

I've slightly sped through the artwork that I don't understand to get to something I do understand - and that is how gorgeous this record is. My word. The dark black of the outer sleeve is contrasted nicely by the lime green inner, and the pale record itself. The lyrics being printed on the inner sleeve is, as always, a bonus for me. Also appreciated is the free CD copy of the album, thanks 4AD.

I really, really like this album. It's a throbbing, moody electronic beast coated with sweet-sounding female vocals that belie their lyrical content (sample: "cut open my sternum and pull my little ribs around you"). Writing about this feels a bit like when I tried (and failed) to write about Donuts - this isn't within the range of things I usually write about but I absolutely love it anyway. It's got an unmistakeable groove about it, which my body doesn't fully know how to respond to. I lack the capacity to dance, so I just nod my head in quiet appreciation but that doesn't feel like enough. Need to sort this out, evidently. My favourite track on the album is Fineshrine, which is most responsible for these feelings. The chorus is just too catchy and I can't deal with its rhythm. This probably ranks as one of my top albums of last year, and it's good to finally own it especially when it looks so nice.

Collections Of Colonies Of Bees - GIVING

Right, quick jump backwards here. This is another record I picked up when I got Donuts from Norman, and was also fairly cheap in the sale so it's all good.

That weird deer/man thing (at least, those are the things I think are being combined here) is actually made of porcelain. Some actually made that. Moreover, someone owns that. I think I'm kinda jealous, it's quite cool. The contrast of the white sculpture on the black background is PRETTY NICE and I'm a big fan of the pink strip.

As a nice extra touch, the sleeve has the song names printed on the inside. Also, it's bright pink. It's okay, that.

Bloody hell that's nice, isn't it? I love records that match the colour of their artwork, and this is superb. The swirl is really lovely, and black and pink is a nice colour pairing. There's also a single-sided insert with the record that has some thanks and stuff, nothing excessive there.

This release, I suppose, is a long EP. The four tracks clock in just short of 30 minutes, a relatively short burst of jerky instrumental tracks. COCOB are a lot of fun, but counter that slightly by being annoyingly difficult to categorise. Little hints of math-rock mix with lashings of post-rock, and yet neither term feels appropriate. They lack the grandiosity of post-rock, and are missing the reckless pace of math-rock. Instead they straddle this middle ground beautifully, producing an EP that is very listenable and very catchy. The first track, Lawn, is probably my favourite and is pretty representative of the EP. I should probably try and buy an album now but crikey, there is no way it will look as nice as this. Great work.

Gnarwolves - Funemployed

Technology is ridiculous, isn't it? I pre-ordered this 7" from my phone sat on a train heading back to Stoke, frankly, because I could. I hadn't listened to Gnarwolves a lot but I know there's a lot of hype around them and it's a joint release between BSM and Tangled Talk, which makes it listenable at the very least.

The cover feels so very FUN PUNK to me. There's a skateboard and a boombox and a slingshot??? I don't understand. It's not really my kind of art style but it definitely has a strong identity so that's a plus for it. (note: I realise how utterly ridiculous this whole paragraph sounds but this isn't the usual kind of thing I write about so forgive me)

This I can get behind though, partially translucent tri-colour with a pizzagram on the label? Yes yes yes yes, excellent work. Nice inner sleeve for a 7", printed lyrics are always a plus as well. For you fans of pressing info, this is from the first pressing with this colourway being limited to 300. There was also a purple, green and blue splatter on white limited to 200. That sold out in about a day, so there was a second pressing limited to 500... which also sold out. Impressive. I'm not bothered enough to try to collect all the colours, pretty happy with this by itself to be honest.

My judgement of the cover, as it happens, was pretty accurate. This is definitely a fun punk 7", the four songs clocking in at a swift 10 minutes. They're brash, loud and pretty enjoyable. I don't think it's going to change my life or anything, but it's good. My favourite song is probably the first track, Melody Has Big Plans, mostly because of the excellent breakdown in the middle and the near-"bleh" towards the end. Yep, not much more to say here. I'll probably try and get their next release whenever it comes, so expect to see them crop up again in future (maybe I'll have more words to say about them then)

Axes self-titled

I've got a few things to catch up with, but I'm gonna skip forwards a bit and do a couple of new items that I got in the past few weeks mainly because they're pretty rad and I want an excuse to post about some coloured records. Right? Right.

A couple of months ago, you may remember I was sent a single for free (still not over how cool that was), and in that post I said I thought the label that released it might be a source for future posts. Lo and behold, here we are and I've thrown money at Enjoyment Records for a couple of things. Here is the first, co-released with my beloved Big Scary Monsters handling the CD version and Enjoyment doing the vinyl.

This is the debut mini-album from Axes. The band logo is quite nice, and I like that they chose to make the cover both colourful and geometrically pleasing. It's almost as if they wanted to make me happy. You might notice my sleeve got a bit bent in the post which is annoying, but the record itself is fine so no biggie.

Suuuuper-nice splatter on this fella. It's meant to be blue, yellow and purple splatter but the yellow seems to have gotten a bit lost - you can see little hints of it, but the photo doesn't quite capture that. Still gorgeous though.

Time for a bit of music chat then. Axes can be described, I suppose, as instrumental math-rock. Now of course, hearing that phrase means (for me at least) Hella immediately spring to mind. Hella wouldn't be the right comparison for Axes though, they're musically closer to the likes of Talons and Adebisi Shank. So, in short, somewhat less abrasive. It is a little jerky though, don't worry about that. It's actually really good, for a first... mini-album I suppose. Seven tracks isn't an EP, it isn't an album. It's sort of half way between the two. Arguably, it's the perfect length for this. Enough time for a lot of ideas to be thrown into the mix, not so long that it gets stale. I listened to it a few times through on a sunny bus journey to and from a camping shop (festivals - needs must) and it suited the weather pretty perfectly. My favourite track is probably the wonderfully titled Middle East 17, only slightly more for the lovely groove it finds than the thought of Brian Harvey. I'll hopefully be seeing them at 2000 Trees this weekend, which should be great fun especially as the forecast is what can only be described as "hellishly sunny". This release is available for whatever price you choose to pay from the Enjoyment Records bandcamp, so it's worth giving a try.

Record Store Day: Frightened Rabbit - The Midnight Organ Fight/Quietly Now!

Once I heard there was going to be a repressing of The Midnight Organ Fight, I knew I'd end up getting it. I mean come on, it's TMOF. Since I got the original pressing super-cheap (see that post here), of course it had to be an RSD release and thus slightly more expensive than I'd like. It's a bit different to the first pressing though, so the extra cost is a little easier to stomach.

No changes to the cover, and I still love it. So happy it's not a glossy sleeve as well, I don't think one would suit this.

Right, so here's the major difference. This time we've also got a pressing of Quietly Now! which is a live acoustic version of TMOF (minus Bright Pink Bookmark and Extrasupervery, due to the two tracks working as interludes on the album) unseen on vinyl before now. These are the inner sleeves to the two records. The font for Quietly Now! is brilliant, but I'm not sure about the TMOF sleeve. It's nicely drawn and stuff but just a little too creepy for me.

Yep, so there's a disc for each, both on nice heavyweight vinyl. The labels for TMOF are the same as in the first pressing (which were the same as the CD print), and the Quietly Now! labels are the same as the design on its CD. I love this band and their commitment to consistency.

The same back cover design as the first pressing and CD, of course. Also in this package was an art print which matches the inner sleeve for TMOF. Not sure if I'll be putting that on my wall. You'll notice the print is numbered 140/250, this is one of four prints each limited to 250 associated with the release. So a total pressing of 1000, for the UK and Europe. Unfortunately I actually prefer every one of the other prints to this one, I just happened to get the terrifying one. There was a download code in here as well, so good work Fat Cat.

I've spoken about this album before, and I still can't properly explain to you how much I love it. Top 3 albums ever, lyrically brilliant, musically delightful. You know the deal by now. Listen to it if you haven't already, I implore you. What I can talk about, however, is how it sounds live. The short answer to that is "rougher". For all of its fragility, TMOF is quite a warm-sounding record and there's a nice level of polish on it which helps to make it so very listenable. In a live setting though, everything becomes a little more raw, Scott's voice in particular sounding that extra bit more emotional. It's the little differences that make it a subtly different listen to the studio version of the album and a worthwhile release on the whole. That there's now a vinyl pressing of it pleases me a lot, although I probably would've bought a repressing of TMOF even if it hadn't been included. This is a pretty nice package put together by Fat Cat though, and for people who didn't already own TMOF on vinyl it would make a great purchase. For me though, it's just another step towards being a total Frabbit completionist. Watch this space.

Record Store Day: Manchester Orchestra with Frightened Rabbit and Grouplove - split 12"

This was one I was looking forward to. A combination of two bands I love (and, for some reason, Grouplove)? Sign me up. I still managed to completely forget about it, like the well-organised human I am, and only remembered when I was looking for the Norland Wind 7" (sold out EVERYWHERE and on ebay for stupid money before the end of the day, thanks a lot Record Store Day) and the chap in Music Mania in Stoke said this was all the Frightened Rabbit they had in. I was pretty grateful.

The first side is a collaboration between Manchester Orchestra and Frightened Rabbit. I'm just going to hold back on the excitement that sentence gives me until a bit later in this post. The artwork though? The artwork is cool. 12 pairs of devil and weird elephant man for 12 inches of vinyl? I hope so. Not sure if I can deal with the slight slantiness of the red squares though. Hum.

The second side is a collaboration between Manchester Orchestra and Grouplove. I've never really listened to Grouplove before, so this excited me much less. The old man head reminds me a bit of the cover of Everything's Getting Older, but with much more teeth. Not sure why the song name is written upside-down with regards to the head, but whatever. Plain black vinyl, lovely labels, all's good. Oh, and I didn't include it but there was a download code included. No complaints there.

A 12" record with only two tracks on it always feels a bit of a waste to me, but it is what it is. Make It To Me is the collaboration with Grouplove and it's not bad. The synth-y elements that definitely come from the Grouplove side are a little irritating for me and I'm not a big fan of the non-Andy Hull vocals but it's kind of catchy I suppose. Architect, the collaboration with Frightened Rabbit, is much better. Scott and Andy's vocals compliment eachother really well and the song ends up sounding quite Frabbit-y, although it should be said that is about the level that MO's lighter output lies at. It's two of my favourite vocalists on the same song, I was destined to love it. This release is apparently "limited to 2300" (according to Discogs) which doesn't sound massively "limited" to me. Ah well.