Against Me! – Russian Spies b/w Occult Enemies 7″ (Yellow, Blue & Black/Red)

The latest release from Against Me! is the band’s first after officially announcing they will release all future material on their own label, Total Treble. Total Treble has been around for about a year now, but was initially only an online distro that sold Against Me! products and a few other items from bands on Sabot Productions. So from the very beginning it was clear Total Treble had ties to Sabot, and this 7″ has Sabot’s touch.

When the pre-order for this 7″ went up it was only available on two colors; yellow and black. A few days ago Tom Gabel announced that there are actually two other color variants for this 7″, red and blue. Gabel also announced pressing info for the three colors (yellow, red, and blue), with each being limited to 500 copies, which was later proven wrong by Sabot. The official pressing numbers on these are 504 copies on yellow, 496 on red, 500 on blue and unlimited amounts on black. Black is the non-limited variant and it will be kept in print for the time being. Each color is also exclusive to certain places/retailers. Yellow is exclusive to Total Treble and is currently out of print. Red is a tour exclusive and is currently being sold on stops of Against Me!’s current tour as of their June 2 show. Blue is an indie record store exclusive, with no definitive word as to when they will be available.

Something I did not realize upon ordering a yellow copy of this was that it would come with a jacket with yellow lettering, instead of the red lettering that was pictured on the item page in the Total Treble store. In fact there each color variant has a matching cover, with the lettering printed in a corresponding color.  Sabot did not make this fact known at the time I pre-ordered the record back in early May, and I wish they did. They definitely should have. From photos now surfacing around the web, black copies do come with the cover shown on Total Treble’s store, which is also the one most online distros have attached for this 7″ on their product page as well. The insert is exactly the same across all variants.

After seeing copies of the tour exclusive red popping up on ebay, I am 95% certain that the covers for the black and red copies are identical. If there is a difference it is so miniscule and subtle, as in just a lighter shade of red. So if you are only trying to go after the different colored covers and are not concerned about collecting all the variants, save yourself a bit of money by avoiding ebay flipper prices and just buy a black copy somewhere, because it will be in print for a while. That is of course if you’re not lucky enough to score a red copy on Warped Tour or any other shows the band is playing this summer.

As for blue copies my local store sold out of the whopping two copies they got in after just a day or two. I have no idea how Sabot is dividing up the copies per store, but when one of the largest, most trafficked and most successful indie record stores in the U.S. can only get in two copies, something is definitely off. After struggling to track down a blue copy going into the third week post release of this 7″, my suspicions turned out to be right after stumbling upon some blue copies in a brand new online distro/store, which has been officially announced as opened for less than  24 hours as of July 7. The blue copies were billed as indie store exclusives, as in they will only be sold in physical independent record stores and not online. But Sabot decided to send a decent amount of copies to No Idea, a partial online distro, who in turn sold some stock to at least one 100% online distro/store. Don’t know who to blame for this distribution problem, Sabot or No Idea, but either way sending out a single copy to any 100% online store is a major screw up and should  have never happened.

More details on this 7″ are that every cope comes with a digital download code, a double-sided insert with lyrics printed on it and the center holes are the punch out kind that Sabot has been pressing lately. The inside of the jacket is also printed with an image, much like the jacket for Ninja Gun’s latest EP, Roman Nose. Inside the jacket is a picture of the band performing, which you can see below. I took a photo of the opposite sides of each color I have.

+44 – When Your Heart Stops Beating (1st Press)

Something that was in the works for a while, Interscope finally gave the go ahead to press +44’s debut and lone album to be pressed on vinyl. It was exclusively sold through Hot Topic and was released a few weeks ago. There were 2,000 copies pressed on baby blue with white swirl, which matches the artwork pretty close to perfect. Personally I think it would have looked better with black center labels on both sides to lend a bit of contrast instead of white labels in a sea of white.

The sound quality on this is not the greatest, especially considering the first few second of the first track are cut off. But it’s still better than listening to the CD or MP3 version. The price point on this is also higher than it should be, $19.99 for a single LP in a gatefold jacket. When you take into account Blink-182’s The Mark Tom And Travis Show was pressed as a double LP in a gatefold LP with about a dozen more tracks and cost $19.99, the price of When Your Heart Stops Beating looks even higher.

Manchester Orchestra – Simple Math (1st Press)

Manchester Orchestra’s latest full length, Simple Math was pressed on 150 gram vinyl. Why advertise something as not being on the best material is beyond me, but Sony decided to put a red sticker on the front on this record stating the fact that it’s not pressed on 180 gram vinyl. I doubt Favorite Gentlemen wanted to put that sticker on. Pressing numbers were never released and never will be. Don’t worry if you can’t afford to buy this yet as even if it appears to be out of print and sold out everywhere somewhere down the road, they will press more copies.  This happened with the past two Manchester Orchestra albums and people started shelling out $30 or more on ebay for copies of I’m Like a Virgin Losing A Child and Mean Everything To Nothing, only to find out that more copies appeared for sale in the band’s web store through Favorite Gentlemen. When the band tours, they always have copies of all their albums on vinyl at the merch table too and they’ve been doing that since 2008, usually cheaper than buying it online too.

Against Me! – Total Clarity

About a year after releasing the demos from As The Eternal Cowboy, Fat Wreck decided to release the demos from Searching For A Former Clarity. As is typical with most Fat Wreck vinyl releases, they did a limited color pressing and what will most likely be a keep in print black pressing to go along with it. Total Clarity is composed of demos Against Me! laid down during the recording sessions for Searching For A Former Clarity, some of which circulated around the internet prior to being released on this official release. According to Fat Wreck the official numbers for the color pressing is 525 copies. The colors for this were orange and white, I believe the first record on orange and the second on white. Obviously this was pressed as a double LP and it comes housed in a gatefold jacket done in a matte finish. Also included is a fold out insert, which the liner notes are printed on.

The Fat Wreck web store was the only place to order the color pressing of this record, and they charged $5 more for it than the black version. The color pressing cost $19 while the they charged only $14 for the regular black pressing. It’s not the first time I’ve seen a label charge more for a color pressing of a record, but I still think it’s a scummy thing to do. I don’t agree with it and never will, and I pretty much refuse to pay more for something based solely on the difference of it’s on color, on a heavier weight, or more limited/rare. I will never rule out that I would shell out more money for something based on those facts, but the only bands I would do it for I can count on one hand.