C.R. In Forty Six Songs

Here's another one that I brought home a year ago and have only recent got around to properly checking out, largely due to the mess that my record room has been in for months...

I decided some time ago that vinyl discographies are not for me. I used to end up buying discographies of bands that I had liked for many years and whose records I already owned anyway, and for the most part discographies didn't have anything extra to make them 'essential'. So I sold a few a couple of years ago (Brotherhood, Turning Point, Unbroken, Undertow and maybe a couple of others that I forget) but as things go in the world of record collecting, it's easy to break these self imposed rules when something interesting gets dangled in front of your eyes.

In 2023, the C.R. discography, 'The Compassionate Revolution In Forty-Six Songs', was pressed to vinyl for the first time. It was originally released on CD back in 2001, which was only 3 years after he band had broken up. I think this was supposed to come out many years ago, but the people invovled were busy for ten years or so and it kept getting put back. Anyway, when it went up for order I had initially decided that I didn't need it. I have their original LP (which accounts for 25 of the 46 songs) and figured that was enough for me. But then after successfully ignoring the preorder and then not getting overly excited by the photos that got posted once people started to receive their records, the label put some really limited versions up for sale, and it was at this point that I got sucked into placing an order.

This version is known as 'Aquarium Splatter', and there were only 25 made. Usually I hate splatter vinyl, but actually a big part of that is due to most splatter vinyl coming out of the Czech plant which always looks like cheap plastic to me. But when you get splatter from a good quality US plant it looks different. So to me, this splatter version actually looks pretty good.

Both the back cover of the sleeve and also the inner dust sleeve are stickered with 'Aquarium Splatter (25 made)', presumably in case you may forget which version you bought.

C.R. was never really a big band on my radar and they're pretty far from my list of favourite bands. They play songs that are short, fast and intense. The average length of a song here is about one minute (25 are less than one minute, 21 are over one minute, the longest is 2:50 and the shortest 0:09). I find this style tough to listen to at times as it is full on and relentless, but when you are in the mood for something like this then this absolutely hits the spot. If you're not really familiar with C.R. then all in I think that this is a pretty good record to have in your collection and probably a rare case where a discography seems to be a really good buy.