I'm always going on about how I am out of touch with new bands. I can't help being old and I can't help not having as much time as I would like to listen to music. However, as bad as I am at keeping up these days, there are still times when I'm proud to remain one step ahead of the crowd and get in early. Here's one of these increasingly rare examples.
Back in August 2009 I got the debut 7" by a band called GYPSY and I liked it alot. At some point in the last couple of years there was mention of an upcoming LP. Then one day in early January this year I got an email from Six Feet Under Records announcing that the Gypsy LP was available for pre-order. I didn't hesitate for a second. Even better, it mentioned that there was a deluxe edition of 50 copies available, so I wasted no time in adding one to my cart and checking the fuck out quicksmart. Four months later it landed on my doorstep.
First observation - the artwork is a bit 'different'. There is no writing anywhere other than on the spine of the jacket, and the rest of the gatefold jacket is taken up by photos of a young girl surrounded by / playing with a bunch of dreamcatchers.
This 'deluxe edition' is out of 75 copies (although only 50 were sold to nobodies like me, the remaining 25 were distributed amongst the label and band). There are two things that differentiate this version to the regular version. Firstly, the vinyl colour - this version is on pink vinyl (other colours are lavendar and white).
Interestingly, the other differentiator is that this version also comes with one of the dreamcatchers used for the photoshoot. Quite a gimmick I'm sure you will agree. At first I thought that this was pointless, but now I think it's kinda cool just because it's something different. Not an easy item to store though, as I can't really put it in the record sleeve. File under mildly irritating.
My assessment of the LP to date is like this - Day 1, listen to it twice, find it a bit dull and samey & struggle to get through the damn thing. Day 2, listen to it two more times, still find it a bit samey, not particularly excited by it. Day 3, start to find a couple of the songs catchy, and end up playing it about 5 times. Go to bed looking forward to the morning when I can listen to it again. That's where I'm at so far.
So yeah, this is already showing signs of being a real grower. This to me sounds a lot like a beefed up Jawbreaker. Kind of like the vocals from Jawbreaker over Quicksand or Handsome guitars. Check this song (esp the riff that starts 13 seconds in) and I'm sure you'll see what I mean.
7 comments:
I gotta say I'd never heard these, but after checking out that song I'm in. Great heads up
Love this band. listen to the lp back to back on my drive into work.
one of the only record packages that I've seen that makes me wish I still bought records!
I was not into the song on the Striving Higher comp, but after checking out the song that you posted here, I may have to dig a little deeper into this band.
Grabbed this digitally this morning, and I've been listening all day. It's got me totally hooked. Damn, just when you tell yourself that you're not gonna spend any more money on vinyl this month...
I love this record.
Six Feet Under can't buy marketing as good as this blog. I downloaded this album this morning and after listening to it twice, I can see I'm going to have to buy a copy. Even the song from Striving Higher sounds good in context of this album. I'm digging this, and I would have never expected that.
Mike, yeah I didn't even know I had a Gypsy track. The Striving Higher LP on my iPod is under compilations, so the bands don't show up individually. Adding the Gypsy LP on made me realise I had in fact already heard them, but that I didn't give a shit for that track. This post, and getting hold of the LP has totally changed that. Dollars coming SFU's way from me when I probably would have carried on not knowing.
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