Holy Rollers

Towards the end of last year and the start of this one, I was getting into some Dischord (and related) stuff that I hadn't really been too into previously. This led me to looking through the label's catalogue and seeing if there were any other bands that I had never checked out, and I ended up listening to Holy Rollers for the first time in my life. They started out as a trio in the late 80s and ended a few years later in the early 90s as a four piece. I was quite into what I heard, so decided to look for records, and discovered that everything that they had done was super cheap. So I bought three LPs...

The first LP, 'As Is', was released as Dischord 42 in 1990. Bits of this really remind me of one of my other favourite Dischord bands, Jawbox.

The second LP, 'Fabuley', was released in 1991 as Dischord 58. The cover is, in my opinion, awful. But nevermind. Beyond the art, the record is great. It still reminds me a lot of Jawbox, but the guitar on a couple of the songs reminds me of Helmet.

I also got a test press / promo copy of this one too. It was super cheap. Nico tells me this is one of the most common of these Dischord promo releases. But still, the price that I got this for was a steal, being just a little more than a new release 7" costs these days.

This copy comes with a promo poster and press kit.

The third and final self titled LP, released as Dischord 86 in 1993. At this point one of the original members had left, and the band had expanded to being four humans rather than three, with a second guitarist added. You can tell that the sound shifted as a result.

This record sounds quite different to the other two, but I have to say, I think this is their best. Also, the last song on here ('Pure') is outstanding. If the rest of the record sounded like that then this would be fighting for a place in the list of top 10 Dischord releases ever. Yes, that's a strong statement, but listen to the song and tell me I'm wrong.

All of these records put together cost me a fraction more than the current price of one new release LP. For whatever reason, it seems that nobody cares about this band these days. But this is exactly what I am enjoying these last couple of years - exploring the lesser known bands/records from certain labels' back catalogues. I probably wouldn't have been into this sound when the band were actually around as my attention would have been absorbed by other bands back then, but all these years later this sounds really good to me.