Give Them Tests

I've always loved Coalesce. I remember in the mid 90s when I got into them, and not long after Converge appeared and the two did a split 7" together. It seemed like the hardcore world was being dominated by these two powerhouse bands with names starting with a 'C'. I decided there and then that if someone pushed me to pick a side, I was backing Coalesce. And nineteen or so years later, I'm still backing them.

Back in 2011, No Sleep Records re-pressed the first album, 'Give Them Rope', as a double LP. It contained two different mixes of the album on two seperate records - the first contained the original mix of the album as released by Edison Recordings back in 1997, and the second contained the re-mixed version that was released by No Idea Records in 2004. I didn't bother with this when it came out because I felt that I could live without another reissue. But I recently spotted a test press going for cheap on eBay, so I placed a sneaky bid and won it. It comes in a nice sleeve with a large Coalesce logo screened on the back and is numbered out of 20 copies:

This is now the second Coalesce record for which I own only test press and not a regular copy. Sometimes I think it would be cool to ONLY buy test pressings and sell everything that isn't a test press. That would be some next level collecting right there.