Sacred Love 7"

My favourite 7" of late has been the new Sacred Love 7" that was put out by Youngblood Records recently. I bought this purely because I trust Youngblood after their long history of putting out great hardcore records. Even when they put out a band I have never heard of, I just KNOW it will be good. So when the pre-order went up for this about five years ago, I was in, even though I had no idea who or what Sacred Love was.

Turns out that, unsurprisingly, my trust was well placed. As is usually the case with YB releases, this is a damn good hardcore record. And according to itunes, I have now listened to this 19 times in a little over a week. For those of you not in the know (i.e. most of you) this band contains dudes from such bands as Mindset, Brick and Praise. If you don't know who those bands are then I would guess that you are over the age of 25 and probably also starting to look a bit old and fat. Me, I'm a fan of the first of those bands, the second I don't know, and the third is just alright. In my opinion, however, Sacred Love trumps them all. There are bits in the different songs that remind me of various other bands that I have listened to over the years. There's a bit in the first song that reminds me of Civ, and another bit towards the same song that brings to mind 108. The third and fourth songs are reminiscent of Lion Of Judah, which is good for me as LOJ are one of my favourite bands of the past 5 years or so. I'm guessing that's probably not a popular opinion, mind. But I guess we can't all be right all of the time eh?

As I understand it, this 7" is not a new recording, but simply the band's demo from early 2010 pressed onto vinyl. It's also a one time pressing of 500 copies, with 200 on purple and 300 on black. I ordered one of each, mainly because only ordering one would have disrupted my Youngblood collection and thus put the universe out of balance.

When I opened the package, however, I found a third copy of the 7" waiting for me. I would guess that Sean threw it into my order intentionally, rather than by mistake. Anyway, this is the same Sacred Love 7", but with some kind of limited cover. I assume this is the inevitable release show version. I love the art on this thing. I love how it's just a pile of random nonsense. I mean, seriously, what is going on here? We have a swan with a trumpet, a castle on fire and some kind of... what is that? A horse? A dog? A kangaroo? I have no idea. It's just random. But that's why I like it.

It's always really nice to find an extra in a package that I wasn't expecting, and this one is really appreciated... mainly because it means I won't have to spend time scouring eBay for a copy, and saving time is of prime importance these days with my schedule the way it is. Thanks Sean!

When I placed the order for this record, I also took the chance to pick up yet another copy of the first Fired Up 7". This is (apparently) the final press of this 7". I'm almost embarrassed about how many copies of this record that I own. It's seemingly getting out of hand.

Somehow, a different & hand-numbered sleeve always make a record seem more interesting and a day seem brighter...