I've been a big fan of Cave In for a long time now. Over the years I collected more and more of their records that I ended up with a pretty extensive collection. My spreadsheet tells me that I have 74 Cave In records, which seems kinda nuts, but that's because I have multiple copies of every release. But last year when the band released their latest album 'Heavy Pendulum' I decided to give up collecting multiple copies, because the label put out about 15 different versions right off the bat, with most of them being exclusive to some place or other. Making lots of different versions is one thing, but making them exclusive to different places makes it way more expensive, as it requires the payment of umpteen different postage charges. So I decided to pick up just one version and leave it there. The game was well and truly up.
Well, it was then announced that Relapse Records were going to reissue all of their previous albums too. And whilst I decided to give up chasing a complete Cave In collection, when the first one was announced a few weeks ago I was still tempted. 'Until Your Heart Stops' was Cave In's first proper full length, released 25 years ago in 1998. I remember buying it when it came out, and I played it a hell of a lot. It was a HUGE record back then, and it felt super advanced compared to everything else at the time. And even though I am trying to not buy as many reissues these days, the deluxe version looked so good that I decided I wanted one. The only rule, however, was that I would only buy a clear vinyl copy. Relapse always press 100 copies of each release onto clear vinyl, which they don't sell, but give to the bands and friends of the label. The clear vinyl Relapse pressings are without doubt the best version of any release you can buy. They are the rarest and always look the best, especially these days when the label presses everything on splatters and swirls from my favourite pressing plant.
I managed to bag a clear copy and it turned up yesterday. And goddamn, it is a pretty amazing item. The label describes it as 'Housed in a custom designed hardcover 4xLP book, sheathed in a rigid board slipcase'. Basically it is a box set, and the outer box is a thick slipcase.
Inside the exterior slipcase is a big thick book, with a 12" record slipped into every page.
The first two records contain the original album, which has been remastered.
The second two records contain demos, outtakes and alternate versions of the songs from the original recording session.
Even though I am not a fan of the euro vinyl, I will freely admit that their clear vinyl these days does actually look good. It's pretty much the only acceptable colour of vinyl that they make. Ther are 3 other pressings of this and all are on horrendous looking splatter and swirl colours. Looking at pictures of them on discogs, I'm very happy with this one.
There are also 3 different colour pressings of a 2xLP version, which is the remastered original record, without the two records with the extra demos and unreleased stuff. There were over 7,000 copies pressed and the label is sold out of those already, which seems nuts to me. But if nothing else just shows how popular vinyl records are these days... unlike back in 1998 when this was originally released.
I have to say, this is a really beautiful item, but to I have to acknowledge that it is pretty much totally unnecessary. In my mind, the demo versions and earlier outtakes were deemed not good enough to release 25 years ago, so I'm not convinced that they really needed to be put out there on a format that required money to be paid to hear them. But having said that, there's a great version of the Sabbath cover 'N.I.B' with Dave Scrod singing instead of Steve Brodsky, which is worth hearing.