Real Food At Last

I've posted here about the band Understand a couple of times. They were a UK band that came out of the straight edge hardcore scene and existed from 1992-1998. In that time they supported all of the big US bands that came over here, played a few shows in the States, had a 7" released by Equal Vision Records, and an album that came out on a major label. Over time they kinda moved away from the hardcore scene by nature of their decision to sign to a major (the 90s was a weird time), but musically they were absolutely great. They sounded like some of the mid 90s 'post hardcore' bands (Quicksand, Fugazi, Shift are all ballpark comparisons) and I definitely felt at the time that they had a lot more musical talent and songwriting ability than most other UK 'hardcore' bands. Basically they looked and sounded like a US band but lived in the UK, and as a result I think they never quite reached the level of popularity on either side of the Atlantic that they should have. The band came to an end in 1998 and by that time I'm not sure too many people really noticed. They definitely faded away, rather than burnt out.

Well, last year a US label (Rise Records) ended up releasing the 'lost' second album, 'Real Food At Last', which had been recorded following the band being dropped by EastWest back in 1996 or so. The songs sat gathering dust for years as apparently the band weren't happy with how the recordings sounded. Then during the covid period, they decided to spend some time converting the recordings to digital and mixing them. This culminated with Rise agreeing to put it out on vinyl.

This was pressed on 3 colours of vinyl, and I decided to buy only one. This is the 'white and black galaxy' and is limited to 150 copies. The mockup image on the Rise website looks terrible, but thankfully in real life it just looks a bit like a grey marble colour.

I can't imagine too many people (especially those who buy records) are still interested in this band all these years later. But without doubt they have a small following. I used to live in the town they came from and saw them quite a few times, so there is a certain nostaliga factor for me. But these songs still sound great today, and not at all dated. If you didn't know that these songs are over 25 years old, you wouldn't guess, which I suppose is a kind of proof that Understand were well ahead of their time.