In These Clear Yellow Days

I've been on a bit of a Cave In trip the past couple of years, trying to amass as many test presses as possible, and fill in the holes in my colour vinyl collection. One that I knew I was missing was the clear yellow vinyl pressing of the split 7" with Botch, which was part of the Hydrahead Records 'In These Black Days' compilation of 7"s. I think that the clear yellow is the rarest version as I've only actually seen it a couple of times. But, as with every record I've ever chased, eventually one popped up.

The whole 'In These Black Days' series of 7"s was a tribute to Black Sabbath, with various metal hardcore bands covering Sabbath songs. I actually bought all of these 7"s when they were originally released, and had two or more copies of each. There are six 7"s in the series, and they are al really good, although this one featuring Cave In's cover of 'N.I.B.' backed with Botch doing 'The Wizard' is probably the best of the lot. Both bands do really great interpretations of the songs, and make them their own rather than just do straight up covers.

I now have all three colours of this 7" so I pulled them out for a photo. There's a lot of yellow going on in this picture:

When I bought this record, the same seller also had a clear vinyl copy of the Coalesce / Today Is The Day split from the same series. I have two copies of this record already, and used to own a clear one once, but sold or traded it many years ago. But dude wasn't asking much for it, so I decided to add it to my cart. When it showed up I was stoked as it is a very unique copy - it's on clear vinyl, but for some reason it's brown around the edge.

There was talk on the Rev collectors board recently about some clear vinyl records developing a brown 'tea stain' over time. Opinion seems divided on whether this is a real phenomena or not, but after seeing this one I believe it could be true. I just don't believe that a record like this could have rolled off the production line (so to speak). The brown edge is almost too perfect to be an accident. So I could definitely believe that this thing has somehow turned brown over time. But I'm not sure, of course, I'm just speculating. Still, whether it was made this way or not, it's an interesting looking record for sure.