Biffy Clyro - Blackened Sky repress

So my initial plan to do Biffy releases in order (and to catch up on the many non-Biffy releases I am yet to post) is going out of the window today because I received something amazing in the post this morning and my urge to write about it (on its release day, no less!) is too strong.

2012 marks the 10th anniversary of the first Biffy Clyro album, the magnificent Blackened Sky. It also marks the beginning of a series of repressings of the first 3 Biffy albums by Beggars Banquet, the band's old label. The question that presents itself, then, is whether this is a cash-in on the band's latter-day successes. Beggars definitely have a history of doing it (see: the "Singles" CD released around the time of Puzzle's success), but I think they deserve some credit here. The first pressing of the album goes for a pretty high price on ebay these days (a lot seem to go for upwards of £40) so there's certainly the demand for a repressing and, as you'll see, they haven't half-arsed it. They are definitely trying to milk the success a bit, but there's enough to this release to make it not feel like a rip-off. It wasn't very cheap, it must be said, but frankly I was always going to get it so I suppose it could have been worse.

Hnnng yes. I love the cover, it's a bit odd but very cool. Why the plastic figures are staring at the sky, I'll never know. Maybe they're listening to the start of Scary Mary. Who knows. I love the way the text sits at the bottom as well. This record also came in a thick PVC sleeve, which is always appreciated.

I think this is a pretty well-used gatefold. The two sides of this are, cleverly, the same as the two sides of the inner sleeve from the first pressing of this album. I really like the right side, where each line is a different lyric from the album.

And the back cover. 4 sides! Here, I can begin to explain why I think Beggars have done a pretty good job with this. The first record contains the whole of the album, while the second record consists of all of the B-sides from the album's singles (excluding a session version of Kill The Old) plus the two tracks from thekidswhopoptodaywillrocktomorrow (one of two EPs the band released prior to this album) that didn't make it onto Blackened Sky. I think this was a really good idea from Beggars, because it makes this release feel really well-rounded, and it's a good way for newer fans to hear everything from the Blackened Sky era in one fell swoop (and a convenient way to get hold of some of those old B-sides on vinyl, because those singles are getting expensiiiiiive). There's a slight error here, which sees "Time As An Imploding Unit" mis-typed as "Time As As Exploding Unit". It's not a big deal really, but it's an interesting tidbit.

YES. After a short period of no coloured vinyl on the blog, say hello to beautiful purple. An absolutely delightful shade, I think it compliments the artwork (and the lovely right side of the inside) nicely without being too similar to it. The purple isn't completely smooth either, there's a light marble effect which I've tried (and sort of succeeded) to capture in this next picture:

Nice, isn't it? Both records are also in black paper sleeves, which makes a pleasant change to the usual white.

Here comes the point where I'm meant to describe the album to you, but I don't know how well I can. Look, it's one of my favourite albums of all time. I'd go as far as saying it's one of the best debut albums I've ever heard. It does the whole "quiet-loud" thing pretty brilliantly, and it's got some of the best songs the band has ever written on it. There's not a song on it that I dislike, and that's saying something. I'm keeping this as brief as I can, because I know as soon as I start getting into detail I'll be writing forever. It's an album I hold dear to my heart, and it makes me happy when other people feel the same. The B-sides are also, I have to say, pretty consistently excellent. That Hope For An Angel wasn't on Blackened Sky is an absolute travesty, because it's a great song and I really feel it'd fit well on the album. My other personal favourite among the B-sides is Breatheher, a wonderful acoustic song that only gets better with every listen.

I'm really, really happy with this purchase. Beggars could have done a really simple, plain repressing of the album and still sold a fair amount, but there's clearly been a lot of thought put into this release. I'm excited to see what they do with The Vertigo of Bliss and Infinity Land (which hopefully will be released later this year), especially if they pick some more lovely colours for the vinyl.

Perfume Genius - Put Your Back N 2 It

Right. So I'm a good few posts behind, but I'm going to skip a load of stuff because I actually bought a newly-released record recently and sometimes it's nice for this blog to be almost relevant. I hope that's okay with you.

So on the 20th of February, the second album by Perfume Genius was released. Put Your Back N 2 It (weird spelling necessary, apparently) is the follow-up to 2010's magnificent Learning. I was pretty late to the party as far as that album is concerned. Indeed, I listened to it for the first time in January and swiftly fell in love with it. Upon spotting that he had a new album out soon, I umm'ed and ahh'ed over pre-ordering the album on vinyl, forgot about it for a while, then eventually picked it up a few days after it came out from the HMV website with that magic discount I've spoken of before. And now, pictures.

Yeah, cover! As per usual, I have no idea what it's about. This one annoys me slightly, because the words (I believe deliberately) off-centre and it doesn't sit right with me.

The inner sleeve has a nice denim-y pattern on one side, and we've got the usual plain black vinyl. Yep.

I've done these photos slightly differently to usual, because the reverse of the aforementioned inner sleeve is great. It has the lyrics to the whole album and in the bottom-right a download code for the album (which I have blurred out, as usual). I love me a download code. The back of the outer sleeve actually looks really nice as well, very pastel-y.

As for the album, it's awesome. It's the kind of thing that needs to be listened to in headphones late at night. It's fragile and emotional, and the sort of thing you can completely lose yourself in. It might be a bit excessive for some and as such it's not going to be for everyone, but if you're interested then it's on Spotify and there's a full stream on the Guardian's website. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

65daysofstatic - Silent Running

Hello! Since I last properly posted, Christmas has been and gone. Santa was kind to me and brought some new records to my door, but in going home for Christmas I also finally managed to get hold of something that had been sat waiting for me for a long while and that's what I'd like to post about today.

At the start of last year, 65daysofstatic did a live re-scoring of 1972 film Silent Running in Glasgow, the start of all beautiful stories. The success of those two performances spawned several more around Europe, and subsequently the band set up a project on funding website Indiegogo to gauge whether they could get enough backing from fans to make a recorded version doable. By the end of said project, they'd gotten almost four times the amount of money they were looking for. Proof, if it were needed, that people can be awesome. One of the funding levels (at $25) was for a vinyl version of the album, complete with some postcards of artwork that came from the project and a download of the album. Yeah, I was all over that.

Amazing cover. Really appropriate for the album as well. I can't talk this up enough, but any words I use will be less effective than you just looking at it. Magic, right?

Big piece of black plastic, with some nice labels to match the artwork. Always a plus in my book.

So the Indiegogo project said the first 250 orders of the vinyl version would be numbered, and what do you know we have a number here. I can't tell if it's 103 or 203 but eh, it's inexplicably nice to have one of the numbered ones.

And these are the postcards. They look quite nice, but I will obviously never send them. The fun of being a collector.

The album itself is quite an interesting one. Although you can definitely tell it's the work of 65, it also feels like a film soundtrack. Slightly more grandiose than their usual offerings, it's really well-made and works excellently as an album but I'm not sure what happens to the songs now. Will they become part of the band's live set, or is this going to effectively be treated as separate from the other 65 albums? Personally, I think the latter makes more sense and probably is the more likely outcome. As a little deviation from their regular path though, this was definitely a worthwhile exercise. I've only one slight fault of this set, which is that much of the incidental music the band created for the film was not included, and as such you can't watch the film with the 65 soundtrack over the top as they did in the live performances (although it's worth noting there is a bonus EP of songs available only as a download, which are pretty good too). This I feel is a missed opportunity but it shouldn't detract too much from what is a good album, and moreover a very well put-together little package.

Guest Post: Tom

Yes, it's that time again. I've finally managed to convince someone else to write me a guest post. I've been bothering a few people about this for a while now, and Tom (who you can find on twitter to tell him how rad this is) has delivered with a lovely post for your enjoyment.

(p.s. I've got a bunch of things sat waiting to be posted about, I'll catch up on them soon I promise)

Sunn O))) – Monoliths and Dimensions 

I was going to write about something else but then this came through the post for me earlier today, and since it's such an aesthetically pleasing little package I changed my mind. It's Monoliths and Dimensions, the most recent album proper by Seattle's Sunn O))). 

I think quite a lot of people find this band's music unnerving or even scary, and that's probably because it is. However, ever since this record's release I've found myself increasingly drawn in to the mystery and darkness of the band's long, drawn out passages of incredibly slow and heavy atonality. What started that off was seeing them live at ATP back in December 2009, nothing short of an utterly mindblowing (and indeed earblowing), hypnotic experience. On this album their sound became considerably fuller and more experimental, featuring a choir, strings, horns, Attila Csihar (from black metal pioneers Mayhem) and a ton of other new instrumentation. Anyway, let's take a look. 

The packaging takes the form of a gatefold cover with a jacket of that translucent tracing paper stuff with the logo and album name printed on, which I think is pretty cool really, especially when you flip it over to look at what's on the back. 

I don't really know what this drawing is but it's quite intriguing, and there are also the words "SOLID BLACK" which I guess is a fairly accurate representation of the music itself. Now to open this thing up and check out what's in the middle. 

 

This is quite a nice swirly patterny thing, up close it looks like feathers and/or trees or something like that. I also like those two little pictures on this side of the tracing paper stuff. That is a nice touch. 

 

Now we take off that paper and look at the actual cover. My trusty pal Wikipedia tells me that this is the painting "Out-Of-Round X" by Richard Serra, the artist best known for his minimalist sculptures. I really, really like it, and again think it serves as a wonderful visual representation of Sunn O)))'s sound - dark, mysterious, huge yet deceptively subtle. It seems that they're very aware of how the visual and the aural can be used together in such a way that they compliment each other, which is exactly what great album artwork should be all about. 

 

Yes, it's a double LP, which in itself makes me feel giddy with excitement, but even better, we're treated to more artwork, this time somewhat grainy and "messed around with" photographs of the band members doing what they love best: dressing up in robes and hanging in the woods. I find this whole side to Sunn O))) a strange mixture of sinister and comical. Not to knock it though, it's certainly more appropriate for the kind of band they are to look like this than a bunch of dudes in jeans and hoodies or something. The accompanying booklet (mostly quite plain so I won't bother with a picture) folds out into a picture of them robing it up yet again. Nice. 

 

And finally we come to the records themselves. I'd half expected something a bit more elaborate to fit in with the rather lavish packaging, but nope, just plain black here. Then again, given the band we're dealing with here, any other colour might have been equally unexpected for different reasons. So never mind. Much as I love coloured vinyl I don't think a lack of it will prevent this from becoming one of the records I'm happiest to own.

Awesome stuff, thanks a lot Tom.

Calories - Basic Nature

About a month ago, Johnny Foreigner did a gig in Birmingham (and also one in London but that doesn't count because I don't like London) to celebrate the release of their new album. It was a great evening, for a wonderfully small amount of money. One of the several support bands that night was Calories. They were enjoyable, and after the gig I decided to investigate their albums on Spotify. A week or so of listening to nothing else later, I'd bought this (their second and most recent album) direct from their label. It was a bargain £9.50 shipped, and here's a link to it if you're interested. But for now, pictures.

Crazy artwork. There's a lot going on, none of which I totally understand but that's okay 'cause it's pretty.

Now this is something I've never seen before. The inner sleeve (printed with more of the same little pictures from the album cover) has got a little foam disc on it for the CD version of the album to live on. I'm surprised and very impressed that a small label would do something like this, and it's a pleasant alternative to just a download code. Also, the art printed onto the CD matches up with what it covers on the sleeve, which is some quite beautiful attention to detail.

Plain black record, no surprises here. The backs of both the outer and inner sleeves are largely mirrored versions of their respective fronts, which simultaneously is quite cool and hurts my head to look at. Nice. This vinyl version of the record is limited to 500 copies, so I'm surprised they're yet to sell out.

As you may have guessed from my introductory paragraph, I really love this album. It's a noisy rock album, but with the catchy choruses of a pop record. The three-song run of You Could Be Honest, FFWD and Orchard Girls in particular is unbelievably good, and each one has the power to lodge itself into your brain for days at a time. The whole album, though, is a lot of fun and I'm excited to see what they do to follow it. Both of the band's albums are on Spotify, and also their Soundcloud. Go listen.

Frightened Rabbit - A Frightened Rabbit EP

Right. On the 31st of October, Frightened Rabbit's new EP was released on 10" vinyl. If you're a regular reader of this blog, then it should come as no surprise to you that I'd pre-ordered it and 4 days after that it showed up on my doormat. Unfortunately, it's been a bit of a busy month so I've only now gotten round to writing this post up about it. I can assure you, though, it's worth the wait. The EP is still available from Avalanche with a free badge of the artwork (which is where I ordered from - the badge is awesome) so, y'know, you should totally get it.

The artwork's lovely, yet again, isn't it? It's plain and understated, and I love the "banner" style for the band name. Top marks around.

I feel like I'm becoming a bit of a stuck record (to use a delightfully appropriate turn of phrase) when it comes to Frabbit releases, but I don't care - I absolutely love how the band's releases always seem to have consistent artwork. It's just a really nice touch, and the use of the same banner style on the back cover and the record labels fills my heart with happiness. No, really.

Before I talk about the songs, it seems only appropriate that I tell you that you, dear reader, can download this EP for free in exchange for your email address. Follow this link and then you can listen along to your heart's content. The three songs that comprise this EP have been kicking around for a little while, as it was originally released on CD while the band were touring the US and was hosted for streaming purposes... somewhere, I forget exactly where it was. Anyway, I listened to them a few times back then and quite a few more times after the free download became available a couple of weeks before the vinyl release. They're great songs, as I've come to expect from this band. Fuck This Place and The Work both, interestingly, feature guest singers and both of them fit into the Frabbit "sound" really well, although it does take some getting used to hearing another voice alongside Scott's majestic tones. The highlight, though, is definitely Scottish Winds. It's catchy, borderline celebratory and pretty indicative of what Frabbit are "about", as it were. Oh, and as with seemingly everything else the band have released, Scott has written up a track-by-track that is certainly worth a read, so find it here. This release, in case you're the kind of person who's interested, is limited to 500 and I'm glad I own one of them.

Maybeshewill - I Was Here For A Moment, Then I Was Gone

Yes yes yes oh my god yes. After months of Andy telling me I should listen to them, in May of this year I finally gave Maybeshewill a good listen and they promptly took over my heart. Post-rock is, in my opinion, the ultimate revision music. There are minimal lyrics to distract you from whatever you're reading, and the sheer majesty of most post-rock bands make even the most mundane of topics seem enormously important. So over the exam period, I found myself listening to this band an awful lot. I've been looking to pick up their albums ever since then, but only managed to get round to it until last week when I found this (their third album) for £11 on the HMV website (where I inexplicably still get 10% student discount. Bonus). Let's take a look at it, shall we?

I absolutely adore this cover, to the extent that it's probably one of my favourite pieces of album art ever. The vinyl version is actually an extended version of the CD cover (see here) and  it's just so much better. As soon as I saw it, I knew I was going to be buying the vinyl instead of the CD. Outstanding. There are no words on the cover either, which is a lovely touch.

It's a gatefold LP, but there's not much going on in the middle. A whole load of technical details and thanks etc, with a sufficiently muted background to make them readable. Fair enough.

Plain black vinyl, with some fairly subtle labels. The back cover holds little more than the tracklisting, but the visual effect of it is spoiled slightly by the massive white bar with the record label details on it, but I'm really just picking hairs here. Beyond that cover, nothing else really matters.

I'm not going to beat around the bush, I love this band and I love this album. Maybeshewill lie towards the heavier end of post-rock, but incorporate synths and occasionally (though not on this album) some speech samples. So they're a bit like if And So I Watch You From Afar and 65daysofstatic had an illegitimate love-child (if you're a fan of direct band comparisons). I'd like to tell you some highlights of the album but honestly, it's just consistently excellent. The 6-track run in the middle of the album from Red Paper Lanterns to Farewell Sarajevo could be an album on its own and would still be worth as much money as a full album. This is, without a shadow of doubt, one of my top albums of the year. You can stream the entire thing (and both of the band's other albums) from their record label's Bandcamp or on Spotify, which I obviously think you should do. In two months' time, I'll be watching this album being played in full live in Leicester (accompanied by Andy, no less). To say I'm excited is somewhat of an understatement.

Tubelord - My First Castle

As I mentioned in my previous post, I recently bought both versions of the new Tubelord cassette. Yesterday I received an email from the band containing a download link for the songs, which was hugely appreciated and means I can now write about them. Excellent. The cassettes were a fiver each, and are available via the Pink Mist store if you're interested.

The cover is good, if a bit weird. The pastel colours soothe my head, but then I've no idea what's going on above the castle. Is Pinocchio dead? What is Mickey doing? I'll leave these questions open.

What is a nice touch is that there's a tiny version of the band's new logo in the middle of the castle. Subtle, I like it.

Cassettes don't please me too much aesthetically (especially in comparison to records), but the solid colours of both of these are excellent. The cases matching is a nice touch, too.

The tracklisting for these two tapes is slightly unusual. The A-side of each consists of 3 Tubelord songs. First of all we have My First Castle itself, which is an astoundingly good song. Catchy and poppy, it's a pity it's been released a couple of months too late to be a huge summer hit (as I genuinely think it could have been). It brings a smile to your face and although it's a lot more synthesized and radio-friendly than the band's older material, after a few listens it's difficult to care. Ellie Barge, the second track, is much more like the Tubelord of old but with the added synthesized elements of the band's newer songs. It's great. The third track is called Death, and is a fairly uncharacteristic slow(ish) song. It's my least favourite of the three but isn't too bad. There are 6 tracks on the B-side of each tape. They're not songs though. They're poems. Three people contributing two each. I don't know a lot about poetry so I can't really comment in depth on any of the poems, but they're enjoyable and I like that Tubelord were willing to try something a bit different with this release. It'd be better on vinyl though...