Blending

Without a doubt one of my favourite records of this year is the second full length by UK band High Vis. 'Blending' came out not quite two months ago, and it has been impossible to ignore. I initially picked up on this band when all they had out was a 7", and then picked up their debut LP two years ago, and at the time they were pretty much unknown outside of the UK. But in the last few weeks that has definitely changed significantly. This record is literally everywhere right now.

So like a lot of new records these days, this came out on a few different vinyl colours, with the most limited being swirly colours that I didn't really want to own. I saw a friend post a picture of a grey one and thought it looked great, so made moves to try to pick one up. Rather than order one online I went out of my way to pick one up at Rough Trade records, but even though this colour was exclusive to them, they had none in the shop. Then a couple of days later I went to order one online but it was sold out. Goddamn it. By some stroke of luck, my friend ended up with a spare copy and was kind enough to sell me one for what he paid for it. So I did end up with the one I wanted all along. 'Marble smoke' (aka grey) vinyl is exclusive to Rough Trade and there were 300 copies.

I never really thought High Vis to be a 'hardcore' band. The singer at least definitely comes from a hardcore background, but from the word go they were going for a very different sound. They have continued to play a lot of hardcore shows and played with hardcore bands, so they seem to be considered 'hardcore' in some sense. But there is a lot less anger in this record than in the previous ones, so I can see this really crossing over to an indie crowd (if such thing exists in this day and age). To me this sounds more like an indie band from Manchester from 1990 than a hardcore band, yet the hardcore kids all still love it. Who'd have thought it?

What I am really curious about is exactly how this record has got out there quite so much. I have seen almost everyone I follow on instagram posting pictures of this record, including Americans in their 50s. Quite how so many old and out of touch foreigners have picked up on this band I have no idea, but it clearly shows that the band has now achieved a truly global reach. This is probably the best band in the UK right now, and it's great that the world now finally knows it.