Wednesday, 10 July 2024

The Second Stage Turbine Blade

Coheed And Cambria is a band I know absolutely nothing about. Their debut relesase, 'The Second Stage Turbine Blade' was released by Equal Vision Records in 2002, and for me absolutely represents the end of the 'old' Equal Vision. Up to that point, EVR had released hardcore records by the likes of Bane, Floorpunch, Sick Of It All, American Nightmare, Converge, Saves The Day... the list goes on. I used to buy everything they put out whether I had heard of it or not as they rarely put a foot wrong. So when they released the debut Coheed record on CD only in 2002, I blindly bought it... and immediately thought 'what the hell is this?'. It was not like anything that the label had put out previously, but I gave it some time because I had shelled out my hard earned money for it and, as is often the case, I started to quite enjoy it.

And here we are in 2024 and, 22 years after its initial release, 'The Second Stage Turbine Blade' has been pressed onto 'transparent black vinyl' to mark the 20th anniversary of this record. Quite why we are getting a 20th anniversary pressing after 22 years I am unsure, but hey. And come to think of it, who the hell decided on 'transparent black' as a colour of vinyl?

Anyway, I saw this for sale at a UK distro and figured I would grab one whole they are still available for new release price. Having looked on discogs, it seems that most vinyl records by this band end up selling for pretty hefty prices. So I kinda figured this to be one of those 'now or never' moments to finally add this to my collection on the superior format.

I would definitely describe myself as a casual listener of this band. Discogs tells me that they have to date released ten studio albums, of which I have heard only four, the latest of which came out in 2007. But all these years later and I still find this band to be a bit of a mystery, in the respect that I have no idea quite why they seem to be so popular, nor what kind of people like them. Please chip in and tell me if you've ever listened and what your thoughts are.

2 comments:

NicoRevealed said...

I love the next album a lot! But just like you, I only checked out like 3 or 4 albums.

Mike said...

I remember downloading this at the time, and kind of enjoying it, but also feeling weird about liking it. In my shame as a hardcore kid, I made a point to ignore it as much as I could. Haven't thought about this record since then, and I wonder how I'd feel about it now.