Tuesday 30 May 2023

Urban Sprawl

Last year I finally got around to checking out the Urban Sprawl 'Concrete Altar' 7". I picked it up because it was a Revelation release, and I wasn't overly into it. Musically it was alright, but it didn't hugely excite me at the time. However, in time I found myself returning that 7" over and over, and even though I wouldn't rank it in list of favourite 7"s of all time, it definitely has something about it. Well, I then became aware that their 2018 demo had also been pressed to vinyl, and at some point I was buying something or other from someone and noticed that they also had one for sale. Even better, it was one of the 100 copies on orange vinyl copies. Boom. Done.

Well, a couple of weeks ago I finally got around to posting this on here and then discovered that there was also a blue vinyl copy. According to the label's website, there were 100 blue copies exclusively for the band. And by good fortune, there was a copy for sale from a UK seller. So I felt compelled to grab that too an save this post until I had both copies.

What's great about this 7" is that it's not pressed at the pressing plant that I hate. Top marks for that. And the cover art looks much better than the Rev 7". So aestheticaly this one scores highly. But what does it sound like? Well, given this is a demo, the sound is great. It sounds every bit as good as the 7" on Rev. The band plays very fast and raw hardcore, which now and again slows for a mosh part. And even though I still don't think I'd be putting this anywhere a list of best 7"s, I've been playing it a lot. Five songs in nine minutes is a great length when you're in the mood for something hard to push you on, but when you're so old that you don't really have the stamina to keep going. The story of my life these days.

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