Firme

The next stop on my pop punk nostalgia trip is the second LP from Voodoo Glow Skulls, 'Firme'. I was into this band up until this record came out, but I didn't buy this one. Same story as before really - I was way too into straight edge hardcore, and anything that I used to listen to previously no longer interested me. Also it probably didn't help that this one only came on black vinyl. I think back then I had limited money and was prioritising what to buy based on how limited it was. I mean, in any given week I was buying whatever record(s) I thought might not be available next week. So an Epitaph release on black vinyl was never a priority. So I never heard it until last month.

I do remember when this came out because they also made a Spanish version too. At the time I remember thinking that it would be cool to own the Spanish version. But checking discogs, it turns out that the Spanish version was a CD only release.

One thing that I found slightly odd about this is how many of the songs I already knew. Without doing a proper count, I know that at least 5 of these songs had previously been released on other records. I'm not sure why, but would guess that it was because this was supposed to be the record that launched them to the next level, so they probably re-recorded some of their classics for the potential new audience. Like I say, I'm guessing, but let's remember that this came out around the time that Green Day and The Offspring had started to get really big, and after reading one of the Lookout! Records, I know that a lot of bands around that time were really focussed on marketing themselves to a wider audience.

I haven't thought about this band in a long time, but I was surprised to see that they carried on going up until 2012, and have put out a furhter 8 albums since this one. Oh yeah, and one of them is a new album that came out last year that features the dude from Death By Stereo on vocals as the original singer left. Crazy how time flies I guess.