Midtown – Living Well Is The Best Revenge

In a mixed bag of emotions Midtown’s Living Well Is The Best Revenge was finally pressed on vinyl earlier this month, but it also marks the end of Midtown releases on vinyl unfortunately as the odds that Forger What You Know getting pressed are slim to none. The biggest hand in getting both Save The World, Lose The Girl and Living Well pressed also tried to get the ball rolling on getting Forget What You Know pressed, but since that album is owned by a different label (Sony) who is tougher to work with than the label the rights owners (MCA/Universal) for Midtown’s first two full lengths, their final album will likely never see the light of day on vinyl.  For whatever reason Sony refuses to press Forget What You Know, even if a single retailer will take the responsibility of selling the entire pressing.

Now that the rant is done with, here are the details of Living Well. There were 1500 copies pressed on translucent red with black swirl. Rather than going the black route, this color fits the cover best. The only thing aesthetically that bugs me are the center labels, as they are bright blue, which fits nothing artwork or layout wise with this album. Black center labels would have been a much better choice, as they are clearly inspired by the CD, which is not blue, but black. The gatefold artwork is taken from the CD booklet and is additional photos from the bar scene depicted on the cover art.

The Gaslight Anthem – Hold You Up 10″

For Black Friday Record Store Day 2012 The Gaslight Anthem released a 10″ single for “Hold You Up.” It was pressed on red vinyl limited to 3,000 copies. Surprisingly this was not as hard to come by as most Gaslight Anthem stuff, as my store did not sell out of the copies they were allotted. The 10″ does not have a jacket, as it comes with a half fold insert slid into a picture disc sleeve.

Thrice – Anthology

Anthology may be the last release by Thrice ever, hopefully it won’t be though. A four LP live album box set recorded during the band’s farewell tour, Anthology was limited to 3000 copies on white and black 180 gram vinyl. Each set is individually numbered on the back of the cloth lined box and comes with a 22 page full size booklet. Anthology is one of the nicest release of the year. All fours records and booklet slide into the box, as one end it opened. LPs 1 and 3 are on black vinyl and LPs 2 and 4 are on white vinyl. When laid out vertically the sleeves for each record form one image, a watercolor painting that fades from light to dark.

A new development as of March 2013 is that people who buy copies at this point (as of March 2013) are getting copies numbered higher than 3000. There are a few ways to look at it. You could write it off as overruns since the numbers only go as high as in the 3300’s, which would account for a 10% overrun of 300, a standard figure most plants use, a 10% over/under. You could assume there were 4000 copies pressed instead of 3000, a conclusion a few people on a message board immediately jumped to. I typically tend to put more weight in and believe the official numbers given by labels, but in this case I am torn because from personal experience the label has been doing some things I find shady. But until someone gets a number in the 3900’s I’m still more inclined to believe the official pressing info given by a label that in my opinion I feel has less than stellar reputation over assumptions made by people on a message board.

Larry And His Flask – Hobo’s Lament

Hobo’s Lament is the latest release from Larry And His Flask. It was released by Paper + Plastick Records, and to no one’s surprise it was delayed. Though not as long as some of their other releases. The first pressing was done as a picture disc, and P+P has hinted that additional pressings will not be done as a picture disc. There also seems to be a discrepancy with the pressing info or a rep for the label made a typo, as the P+P’s store says there were 2,00 copies pressed, but someone with the label said there are 3,000 copies. It wouldn’t surprise me if P+P got in more copies and never said anything, as they initially said one color of their Nightmare Of You/Nightmares For A Week split was limited to 100 copies when pre-orders first went up, then as it started selling out they added 75 copies of that color to the pressing.

Regarding the music found on this EP, it’s a bunch of re-recorded songs. Of the six songs only one is actually a new song, “Big Ride.” the rest have been released on one of, if not two of the band’s early self released stuff. That’s a bit disappointing but the re-recorded versions are not terrible nor are they leaps and bounds better than the original.

 

Aficionado – Empty 7″

This is the first 7″ released by Aficionado. It was pressed on two colors, black limited to 300 copies and clear with blue streak as limited to 700 copies. The clear with blue streaks is more like light blue with darker blue streaks though, a lot of blue definitely mixed in with the clear to turn it more a shade of blue than straight up clear. It’s definitely not what I expected when hearing the colorway announced by No Sleep Records.

The 7″ features two songs, the title track on the a-side and “The Slack” on the b-side. Overall not a bad release but I like the b-side track a lot more.

Circa Survive – Violent Waves (1st Press)

Circa Survive’s latest album, Violent Waves, was self released. The band did some creative things with the pre-orders for the album in the form of exclusive limited bundles. Including hand painted jackets, hand written lyrics, wooden boxes, pencil sketches, video chats or a phone calls and autographed lithographs. Also included with the standard items in most bundles like a CD, digital download and t-shirt. There were two of these higher end bundles, the highlight of one was a hand painted jacket, with the highlight of the other, more limited one being hand written lyrics. The hand written lyrics bundle cost a jaw dropping $750 and was limited to just 11 copies. It also came with everything mentioned above. The hand painted jacket bundle cost much less but was still astonishingly expensive at $250. It was limited to 100 copies (actually turned out being 111 copies based on the hand numbering) and included just a hand painted jacket, CD, shirt and digital download out of everything mentioned above.

Each of these hand painted jackets are different from each other, as one would expect with them being hand painted. A plain white gatefold jacket is used and part of the album art is painted on the cover, mainly just the planet with the ship sailing around it. The back of the jacket is painted with the artwork from inside the gatefold jacket of the regular pressing. While replicating most of the original artwork on the back cover, the band also painted in random objects in  every copy as well to make each copy unique. Inside the gatefold jacket the track listing is written out. To make each copy more unique, the band used different colors on every copy. For hardcore variant collectors, this makes it 99.9% impossible to get all the variants for this record.

While I respect Circa Survive for releasing this album on their own, charging $500 for hand written lyrics and something I’ve done with the band (chatting with them) before and after shows for free is something I don’t agree with. These two bundles sold out very quickly. The lyrics bundle sold out in a few hours and the hand painted jacket bundle sold out in a little over 24 hours.

As for details about the record itself, it was pressed as a double LP on 180 gram black vinyl housed in a gatefold jacket. No idea how many copies were pressed, probably a couple thousand at least. As usual the artwork, done by Esao Andrews, is amazing. Initially the only place to buy the record was directly through the band, but lately more and more places have started carrying the album on vinyl.

In 2022 a re-press was announced, which was released by Sumerian Records. Pre-orders went live in August 2022. There was a U.S. variant/pressing and a Euro variant/pressing, with the Euro copies shipping well ahead of its U.S. counterpart. The estiamted ship date for the U.S. copies was “Fall 2022.” As of end of January 2023 the U.S. copies still have not shipped out, with no word from the label on what the hold up is.

Anberlin – Vital

Anberlin’s latest album, Vital, is hard to find for a reasonable price. It costs at least $30 from the band’s official webstore hosted by Shopbenchmark. And that seems to be the only place to buy it online. however, some indie record stores are carrying the record, with some of those selling it online as they took the store online as well as having a physical location. The indie stores are selling it for cheaper for whatever reason. I got my copy from Twist & Shout in Denver for less than $20 shipped.

The record was only pressed as a double 10″, with the d-side being blank. There have been mumblings about a regular LP pressing, which was mentioned by the band, but so far nothing as surfaced. That LP pressing, which would be a second pressing, would indicate that 10″ version of the album may be limited. But pressing info was never released for the 10″ pressing and it has not gone OOP yet. One interesting thing about the 10″ pressing is that the cover has the title of the album embossed. It’s tough to see in the photos or even the naked eye because the test is made to blend into the artwork, but when the hold the jacket you can felt the embossed letter.

Anchor & Braille – The Quiet Life

The Quiet Life is the sophomore album from Anchor & Braille. It was pressed and released by Tooth & Nail Records. All copies were pressed on 180 gram black vinyl, and pressing info was never announced. There is alternate artwork for the vinyl version of the album, as it features and anchor with mountains in the background instead of the silhouette of a face with trees mixed in found with the CD and digital version. No insert or download code/card is included with this and the record is housed in a cheap jacket. Other than the 180 gram part, which is not mentioned anywhere by T&N, they really cheaped out with this release.

As of now there are two places to buy the record, through Anchor & Braille’s official store hosted by Shopbenchmark or through T&N’s official store hosted by Merchdirect. You can get it cheaper through T&N’s Merchdirect store.

V/A – Where Is My Mind: A Tribute To The Pixies (1st Press)

As the title suggest this is a tribute comp to The Pixies with various bands covering some of their songs. It was released by Doghouse Records on several different colors. I have never seen pressing info for it, but it was pressed on clear, red, green and blue vinyl. I bought it for the Far and Weezer covers. Far covers “Monkey Gone To Heaven” and Weezer covers “Velouria.” Instead of an insert it comes with the booklet from the CD version of the comp.

In 2016 this comp received a re-press on random split color vinyl. Retail on this re-press is about the same as I paid for an original so I’m not bummed.

What’s Eating Gilbert – The Nashville Session 7″

The Nashville Session 7″ was supposed to be released in mid June 2012, but since Paper + Plastick Records released the record it was inevitably delayed. Making no apologies and just making lame excuses or talking down to customers and fans, P+P didn’t ship out the records till over two months after the release date. It took so long that another Gilbert 7″ being released by a different label, Bridge 9, actually shipped before the P+P could even admit they screwed up and dropped the ball with this 7″. But to those familiar with P+P it’s par for the course.

But enough about P+P’s inefficiency as it detracts from a great guy in Chad Gilbert and the great music he puts outs. The songs on this 7″ rock so buy it now since the records should actually ship to you in a somewhat timely manner. There were 500 copies pressed, 250 copies on powder blue and 250 copies on red. The sleeves are also screen printed, which added a nice touch to the release that P+P never mentioned they were doing for it.