Anne - Dream Punx [A389]

This is another record I picked up at the A389 bash, I'm slowly updating my blog with everything I purchased there, I would do one mass post but my upload speed out in the sticks is 1997 slow and it takes me at least 45 minutes to upload a posts worth of pictures so I apologize.

Anne are kind of shoegaze post punk and definitely a departure from what A389 normally put out, this is not a bad thing by any stretch of the imagination and I'd urge anyone to listen to it. 

I haven't checked out the pressing numbers for the LP but I think the whole press came out on volour with the numbers shared between the variants, there's no insert with it and the back cover doesn't really give you anything to go on other than the song titles.  Basically the music speaks for itself, I've been listening to this pretty much non-stop for 3 weeks and I keep hearing something new in the songs every time.  A rare treat.

 The missus saw this and thought it looked lovely, I'm a little at odds if I'm honest, the colours go with the artwork and the a/b side splits always make for a different effect on each side, it just looks more like a dessert treat than a record, slap some raspberry sauce on this bad boy and you could have it as a follow up to a nice steak dinner.  That being said, I'd love for someone to come out with scented vinyl, is that even available?  That's be perfect for the colour choice here!

Young And In The Way - Amen/I Am Not What I Am [A389]

I picked up this record from the A389 anniversary show in Baltimore last month, I'd heard a few tracks from previews online and it seemed like my kinda deal, they describe themselves as all American blackened crust, now I don't think I have heard much all American blackened crust before and if this is what it sounds like, I'm down.  This is a double LP of two different records, one previously released on CD and one brand new as far as I can tell. I wish I took a picture of their merch desk, there was a deer skull with candles burning and all of the band had YAITW back patches on their biker leather jackets.  The band were burning incense sticks at the side of the stage when they played, for a minute I thought I was going to witness a Bossk reunion.

 Each of the records are upside down from each other on the back and inside, minimalist text on the inside with no lyrics which adds to the mysteriousness of the music itself.  I like how a lot of A389 records come on gatefold, they're not cheap to produce and a lesser label would be taking a risk doing such a thing, good thing this isn't their first release then.

 Both of the LP's are half and half, I've heard a few of the younger hardcore kids from round my way complain that they don't like this kind of vinyl and much prefer the gawdy pink and white splatter with clear bits infused in there too, each to their own.  I much prefer a nice solid colour or a half and half split over splatter effects any day, the colour choice goes with the artwork but then again if the artwork is black and white you can pretty much get away with any colour vinyl and it'll compliment it. 

 The B-side for the records has the YAITW combo logo they use on a lot of their shirts and artworks, I coudn't see the letter A in it for a long time until I realised they used an X for "and."

Blood Ceremony - Living With The Ancients [Rise Above]

I got this double LP for Christmas, I’m on a catch up tip at the moment.  I’d never heard of this Toronto group until it was announced that Ancient VVisdom were going on tour with them and Ghost so I decided to check them out as I literally know of no other band that are similar to AVV and I’m willing to check out any band with a female vocalist in case it blows me away as much as Rose Kemp did when I first heard her.  Whilst Blood Ceremony didn’t hit me for six like Rose did, they certainly got my attention when I hear lyrics about the great god Pan and the flute solos dotted about the record, colour me interested. 

Anyways, I got this for Christmas off the missus, not knowing if it’d come on colour or what, turns out it was the green vinyl version and it’s a double gatefold too, bonus.  The Rise Above pressing info lists all of the variant colours as out of 300, the band didn’t have any copies with them when I caught them live in Toronto last month so good job I managed to get this one from the record store.

The band themselves look like they’re straight out of the 60’s, one of them needs to admit the fact he’s not as thick on top anymore and shave it while the singer does a good job of channelling Kate Bush’s moves on stage.