A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the 2017 vinyl reissue of Damn The Torpedoes by Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers. It might sound like a grandiose claim to say something like, “Truly and genuinely rare is an album like Damn The Torpedoes – it has really introduced some of the biggest and most respected institutions in the modern music industry” but those who think so simply do not know the whole story of the album. First, it’s important...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the 2LP edition of Legacy by David Bowie. On the surface, the existence of Legacy – the newest compilation of the greatest hits from David Bowie’s songbook – likely comes off as a little confusing. The set arrived almost two years to the day after Nothing Has Changed (a.k.a. The greatest hits comp which was curated by the artist himself) and, name-for-name, features a very, very (very – it’s about 75% the...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the 2LP Beggars Arkive Edition reissue of The Closer You Get by Six. By Seven. By the time the ‘century’ portion of the calandar rolled over seventeen years ago, rock was already beginning to mutate in some pretty interesting ways. By then, the “rap-rock” fan had already come and helped to administer a hefty injection of fresh, crotch-grabbing energy to the form, goth was bigger and more mainstream than it had ever...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the 2LP+1CD deluxe edition of the Singles soundtrack. While there are several great soundtracks which were released in the 1990s (the Tank Girl, The Crow and Great Expectations soundtracks all leap to mind), arguably the greatest and most culturally important of the lot proved to be that of Cameron Crow’s first “rock memory scrapbook” picture, Singles. The reason for that is pretty easy to explain; released in 1992, Singles happened to come...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the Sleeping Through The War LP by All Them Witches. They might not actually be from the desert (in fact they’re from Nashville, TN), but that doesn’t mean All Them Witches haven’t channelled the heat, aridity and all the weirdness normally associated such a landscape and front-loaded it onto their fourth full-length album, Sleeping Through The War. This time though, no introductions get made (none are really necessary – the band had...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the Good Night Tomorrow LP by NEEDLES//PINS. Such occurrences are rare, but sometimes all the tumblers align and a band doesn’t just produce the best damned music of its career, that music happens to get released in just the right place at the right time that the music catches a large amount of attention. There are too many variables at work to try and plan something like that; it pretty much has...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the Unclean 7” by Tough Age. After they’ve gone through all three songs which comprise Tough Age’s new Unclean 7”, listeners may find that they need to take a moment and collect themselves – I certainly did. I needed to step back and collect myself because I had no particular desire to just spill ink and compliments all over a page; true, all three songs are great and effortlessly called out the...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the vinyl reissue of the Labyrinth soundtrack by David Bowie and Trevor Jones. While his career was characterized by no small number of unusual events, arguably the greatest concentration of weirdness about David Bowie’s career can be found in the 1980s. Within those ten fateful years, Bowie released albums which have come to be regarded as some of his finest (Let’s Dance was the album which broke the singer into the Top...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the “Freeze Me” flexi-disc by Death From Above. It might not really need saying, but listening to the new flexi-disc from Death From Above really reiterates what a creatively fertile period the last few years have been for the group. The appearance of The Physical World in 2013 marked the beginning of a new era for the band; on that album, the group better developed their sound so it functioned well beyond...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the Family Hangover LP by Walrus. When one considers Walrus’ debut LP, Family Hangover, the first stumbling block which comes up is where the music came from. As one listens, it quickly becomes easy to pick out little bits of ideas which were obviously originally the work of artists who initially inspired the band and, because those stylistic breadcrumbs are so easy to spot, one will quickly begin to wonder just how...