Album of the year project 3rd post.

The third match-up sees ...And You Will Know Us By The Trail Os Dead's record "Tao Of The Dead" against Wino's "Adrift".

 

The prog-rockers ...And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead is a new experience for me. For some reason I've always thought that they played some kind of lame indie pop. After I understood that they play brilliant prog rock I had to get the new album, and I can't say I'm disappointed! This is a great album, packed full of great riffs, lovely atmospheric parts and straight forward rock songs. You really don't expect a band like this to put out so many great songs on one album, normally the album is more in focus rather than the songs. I mean that you have to listen to an album from start to finish to really appreciate it but on "Tao Of The Dead" several of the songs really stand up on their own as well. Some good examples are "Weight Of The Sun", "The Wasteland" and "Ebb Away".

The record is sort of two parter where the band, on the c-side, has one song they call "Strange News From Another Planet", which is something more to be expected from a band like Trail Of Dead with spaced out parts and the song reaching over the ten minute mark (and probably more, there's no way to tell the length of a song on a record player;)). This last side ties the record together perfectly.

Scott Weinrich, what a voice that man's been gifted with! The frontman of such stoner/doom legends as Saint Vitus and Spirit Caravan. This is Wino's first acoustic album. There are some electric guitar solos as well but it's mainly based on his voice and his guitar. The progress he has made musically is comparable to the likes of Scott Kelly and Steve Von Till for example. Those two play in the band Neurosis which started out as hardcore punk but has progressed to more experimental metal. They have both released solo material which has been just their voices and a guitar. So to get back to Wino...

"Adrift" seems like a natural step leap from Spirit Caravan's stoner rock (he's played in several bands after they split up but I haven't listened to most of them). They have always used acoustic guitars in their songs, quite effectively as well. I have a feeling that some of the material on this record would have benefited to go through a Spirit Caravan filter. You can hear the potential of the songs and sometimes it works but I think that they could have been even better. There are some quality riffs on here, like on "Mala Suerte" and "D-Bear" for example. What would that song sounded like if Wino was backed up with a band?

So in conclusion Trail Of Dead advances to the next stage.

Next up is Indie/psych rockers Akron/Family against the first metal album so far the last one from Crowbar.

Album of the year project 2nd post.

The second match-up also features a Norwegian band. They're up against the mellow singer/songwriter music of Sam Beam's moniker Iron & Wine.

2011 has really been a triumphant year here in Norway for the Stavanger  based collective. From this record alone they have had three huge hits that's been playing non-stop on the Norwegian radio stations. The three songs are really hit friendly and catchy tunes, add the twist of gypsy influenced accordians and harmoniums and you have a recipe for success apparently. They have had headlining spots at the biggest Norwegian festivals Öya and Slottsfjell and have grown from, probably, the biggest Norwegian band as of today to even bigger.

So, does the music live up to the hype? The Violeta Violeta project is a trilogy of records and this one was released in January marking the first one. The second one is set to be released on 11.11.11. They have already released two singles from the upcoming album, which means they have had five frequently played singles on radio since August last year. The hits are without a doubt brilliant songs unfortunately the rest of the album can't really live up to that standard. There are some quality songs other than these three but there are a few that, for me, are just fillers. It's an impressive project that they've taken on and I'm looking forward to explore the next two releases.

The Iron & Wine album is one of these low key singer/songwriter albums that really isn't my cup of tea. I get easily bored with records like these. I don't know why but there's just something there that doesn't catch my ears. However, if there is a record within this genre that I like, I listen to it more or less non-stop. There are few of these but when that one record comes it is great! There is at least one of those records released this year, but is this the one? No, not really. It is a good album but for me, it lacks that little bit of magic to make it a classic. It's an even record without any real lows, but I miss the highs for it to be a record of my taste.

Conclusion: "Kiss Each Other Clean" might be a more even record over all, but with the strength of the good songs that are on "Violeta, Violeta, Vol. 1" the Norwegians will progress to the next level.

Next up is Wino vs. ...And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead.

Album of the year project 1st post.

As I wrote about in a previous post I'm doing the "best of the year list" a bit different this year. I believe this is the best way to decide which album really is the best of the year. The results are obviously only my personal opinion, with a little help from my girlfriend as well sometimes.

So, the first match-up that I'm listening to at the moment is between Decemberists' "The King Is Dead" and Delillos' "Trist Å Väre Glad". Both albums were released in January this year. The Delillos album was one of those that I listened to quite a lot during the spring before the releases of the year really picked up.


It's a tougher match-up that I anticipated actually. I have given the Decemberists album a couple of listens this year and it's a real beauty. I'm a big fan of the country/americana genre with the new Jayhawks album being one of the more anticipated releases of the year. I got it this week but I haven't had the chance to listen to it yet.

Spotify links:

The Decemberists - The King Is Dead

Delillos - Trist Å Väre Glad

The Decemberists album has more or less everything I look for in an album like this. Great songs, like the album opener "Don't Carry It All" and the beautiful "Rise To Me". The A-side really delivers but flip the record over and the B-side can't really live up to the quality of the former. On the B-side opener they try to pick up the pace with the Springsteen inspired "Down By The Water", but there's just something missing. It's an ok song but nothing more. And that's how the rest of the album continues with the exception of the low-key beauty "June Hymn" in the middle of it. But it alone isn't able to lift the B-side to higher grounds.

The story behind the last Delillos album is an interesting one. During a series of live shows last year (I think it was) they more or less jammed out the songs that were to be the new album "Trist Å Väre Glad". This is a really "fun" album and you always get a warm, nice feeling listening to it. It also features one of the best songs of the year, the title track. The fact that they sing in their native Norwegian language makes the album an honest and personal experience and they paint beautiful stories in their songs. As with the Decemberist album this record really shows it's strong points on the first side. The Delillos album however can keep this quality even on the b-side. They have drinking ballads in the vein of Tom Waits ("Lars Lillos Drikkevise"). They even finish the album with a song about singing in your native language, with the song "Jeg Elsker Deg" ("I Love You").

To summarize: I didn't think that the Decemberists album would stand up as well as it did along side the Delillos album but it really did. However with a better b-side and an overall quality Delillos will advance to the next stage.

Next up is Kaizers Orchestra vs. Iron & Wine.

Three awesome new releases! I hope...

Today I got three new records that i've been really looking forward to. Every release is quite big!

The records are the new releases from Björk, Coldplay and the legend himself, Tom Waits.
I'm listening to the Waits album for the first time right now and I haven't heard anything from the other two either so this will be exciting:-)

Two of these albums are yet to be released actually. The Tom Waits album will be released on friday and the Coldplay album will be released on monday. One of the privilages of working in a record store;-)

Iron Maiden box set.

I haven't really had a good experience with the Norwegian toll system. First of all they charge a 25% "merverdiavgift" on everything that costs more than 200 NOK, which really isn't a whole lot. You normally can't buy more than maybe one or two used records for that price. This limit has been the same since the 70's and we all know that you don't exactly get the same kind of goods for 200 NOK today as you did 40 years ago...

These last few weeks I've been even more frustrated than ever at the toll system. They have held a package there for over three weeks and I've sent them numerous e-mails and called them even more. I've spent three half hour breaks at work sitting in telephone line waiting for someone to solve this for me without an answer.

This week I finally got a note in the mail that my package was ready for pick-up at the local post office for a small fee. A fee that was smaller than expected since the reason why they hold my package seemed to be that they didn't have a invoice for the goods, which I've e-mailed them three times...

Anyhow... So I finally got my long awaited Iron Maiden box set. It's a compilation of the first ten years and it collects ten double 12" singles. This was released in 1990 and (taken from wikipedia) "each part in the series included a special voucher, all ten of which could be exchanged by mail order for a limited edition storage box.". I guess that there aren't that many boxes out there (considering it's an Iron Maiden release, one of the biggest bands in the world) so it's quite rare, this made it one of my most sought after Maiden records. A complete box set in good condition normally sells on ebay for somewhere between £150-200. I was lucky to get mine at about £75. A real bargain!! :)

So my Iron Maiden collection keeps growing. A very fun band to collect!

A blog for the ladies!

I'm sitting here at the moment listening to the latest St. Vincent vinyl "Strange Mercy". St. Vincent is the moniker Annie Erin Clark uses for this band. As she's signed to 4AD and Pitchfork gave the album 9/10 and the title "Best new music" I had to check it out.

It's a great record that doesn't sound like much else that I've heard lately. I get PJ Harvey vibes from the record, without the record actually sounding anything at all like PJ Harvey. It got me thinking...

Some of the best records this year ("Strange Mercy" has to be included, it's really good!) are by St. Vincent, PJ Harvey and Lykke Li. We have an upcoming release by Björk next week which might make this trio in to a foursome. All these women have created albums this year that is something out of the ordinary, weirdly beautiful each and every one of them and none of them sound like the other.

Everyone is doing really unconventional music and succeeds with it without it being weird for weirdness sake but actually good!

Go unique women!

Opeth - Heritage

No, I can't wait any longer!! It's being released tomorrow but I won't have it on vinyl until earliest Friday I think. When I pre-ordered the album from the official website I was promised a download code of the entire album the day before it's release.

Today I got two e-mails with a download code in each (I ordered two versions so if anyone wants a code just get in touch:)) and I've just added the album to my iPod so now I'll go to bed and listen to Heritage in my headphones for the first time! I'm excited!!

Hidden gems from my dad's old collection.

I owe my huge music interest more or less all to my dad. As a kid I remember looking through his vinyl collection looking for cool records to listen to. So I picked out The Beatles, David Bowie, The Clash, Eagles vinyl etc. etc. from his collection and I've been listening to it for a long time.

Recently I've been going through his collection once again picking out vinyl that I want in my collection and I think I left with about 200 vinyls when I did that. Most recently I took all of his 7" singles as well. There are about 3-400 of them from his collection and I can add about 200 probably that I've bought through the years. I add all of these into two different databases, one is a simple excel form that I simply put in the information of the record: artist, title, record company, year, format, genre. The other one I use is Discogs.

Today I was adding the last batch of singles that I've gotten from my dad, and to my surprise there was one single that is worth quite a lot of money

Mandarines - EP

Mandarines is a Swedish band from the late 70's that I hadn't really heard of until today I listened to this EP and it's actually quite good. Some nice powerpop/punk. The guitarist, Janne Andersson, later came to play with Japop, Ulf Lundell and Gyllene Tider to name a few. 

I searched them on Discogs to add this release to my collection and when I get to the release page I see that there is one copy of this for sale. The price is an unbelievable £115.99! Sometimes the sellers on Discogs can put insane prices on quite random releases so I went to popsike to see what it had sold for on ebay and it's selling for somewhere between 80-150 US dollars! A recent sell on ebay (from february this year) shows an ending price of $142. Insane, to say the least!

"Album of the year" project

The last few years I've listed my favourite albums from the past year. I will do so this year as well but this time I will do it a little differently than before. I always have difficulties ranking the records. Often the number one spot has been quite easily decided but how do I really come to the decision?

I think I mostly base it on the number of times I play a record, the more you like a record, the more you're likely to play it, right?

This year though I'm gonna have a play off with the records of the year. I've put together a grid play off with 64 brackets. Here's an example of how one of these things looks, for those of you who doesn't understand what the hell I'm talking about:

So I'll put two records up against each other and the one I think is better advances to the next stage until at last there is just one album still standing- the album of the year!

First I had the idea of putting up a vote on my blog on each "match up", but for a few reasons it wouldn't work. For once there aren't that many readers here to be honest, and those who would vote would probably be three of four people so it wouldn't be too much of a competition:)

Second of all it's my blog and my opinions so I thought it would be better to have my views on it. Also I'll have help from my girlfriend to decide some of the match ups. I'll have final say though;)

I will put the albums against each other that have been released at the same time of the year so that I've had the chance to listen to both albums an equal amount of times. Which in most cases I haven't, but at least I've had the chance... So first up will by Decemberists against the Delillos album which were both released in January this year.

The criterias I have for an album to be part of this is:
1. That I own it on vinyl.
2. That it is an original release. Not a collection (like Foo Fighters - Medium Rare), not a live album (like Neil Youngs - A Treasure or Mastodon - Live At Aragorn) etc.
3. It qualifies to be among the best 64 records released this year. Apparently I have too many records at the moment. I own a few from the year already and I also have a list of records that will be released this year that I will buy so I have to sort some of them out before this thing starts.

Here are the albums that I've got so far:

...And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead	Tao Of Dead
Akron/Family	S/T II
Amon Amarth	Surtur Rising
Anna Järvinen	Anna Själv Tredje
Bigbang	Epic Scrap Metal
Black Country Communion	BCC 2
Blackfield	Welcome To My DNA
Bon Iver	Bon Iver
Boris	New Album
Boris	Heavy Rocks
Boris	Attention Please
Bright Eyes	People's Key
Buffalo Tom	Skins
Cave Singers	No Witch
Crowbar	Sever The Wicked Hand
Decemberists	The King Is Dead
Delillos	Trist Å Väre Glad
Drive-By Truckers	Go-Go Boots
Earth	Angels Of Darkness, Demons Of Light
Explosions In The Sky	Take Care, Take Care, Take Care
Fleet Foxes	Helplessness Blues
Foo Fighters	Wasting Light
Girls	Father, Son And The Holy Ghost
Graveyard	Hisingen Blues
Haunted	Unseen
Iron & Wine	Kiss Each Other Clean
J Mascis	Several Shades Of Why
Jarle Bernhoft	Solidarity Breaks
Jeff Bridges	Jeff Bridges
Kaizers Orchestra	Violeta Violeta Vol.1
Kebnekajse	Idioten
Ljungblut	Over Skyene Skinner Altid Solen
Low	C'mon
Lykke Li	Wounded Rhymes
Manchester Orchestra	Simple Math
Mogwai	Hardcore Will Never Die
My Morning Jacket	Circuital
Okkervil River	I Am Very Far
Panda Bear	Tomboy
Paul Simon	So Beautiful Or So What
PJ Harvey	Let England Shake
REM	Collapse Into Now
Spirits Of The Dead	The Great God Pan
Steve Earle	I'll Never Get Out Of This World Alive
Thurston Moore	Demolished Thoughts
TV On The Radio	Nine Types Of Light
Twilight Singers	Dynamite Steps
Urge Overkill	Rock&Roll Submarine
Wino	Adrift
Wobbler	Rites At Dawn
Wolf	Legions Of Bastards

And there are releases from all of these bands that have just been released or are expected later this year that I'll most likely buy:

Opeth

Mastodon Steven Wilson

Sivert Höyem

The Amazing

Björk

Clap Your Hands And Say Yeah

Coldplay

Black Keys

Ryan Adams

Blink-182

Lou Reed and Metallica

St. Vincent

Tom Waits

Wilco

Jayhawks

Are there any records that I'm missing from the year so far, or upcoming releases?

The record Kent wish they could make.

Last Friday we at The Garden released a special album.

For you non-Norwegians (which I guess most of you are), bands like Seigmen and Zeromancer doesn't mean much. I hadn't heard of them before I moved here either. Seigmen is one of the bigger Norwegian bands of the last 20 years or so. They split up in 1999 and has since done a few reunion gigs.

Kim Ljung played bass and did backing vocals in Seigmen, he's also responsible for a lot of the writing. When Seigmen split up he and two other members from the band formed Zeromancer. Kim has also had he's own side project Ljungblut. He has just released his fourth album under this moniker.

This album is entitled "Over Skyene Skinner Alltid Solen". It is released by The Garden together with Pleasuredisc. It has been released on both CD and vinyl. The CD version is a digipack limited to 1 000 copies which are all numbered and signed by Kim Ljung himself. The vinyl is limited to 300 copies and are also numbered and signed by Kim.

Like the title says "The record Kent wish they could make." I hear a lot of Kent on this album and I understand Kim is a fan of the band as well so it isn't too far fetched. Especially the last couple of Kent albums where they have taken a more electronic/synth approach to it- only Kim Ljung perfects the sound. This is the first album since Seigmen's "Metropolis" (released in 1995) that Kim sings in Norwegian and he explained it as he wanted to be closer to the fans, which was also why he wanted to put his signature on every record. This album really has a "naked" sound to as well. A beautiful album, to put it short!

Here's a Spotify link to the album.

Iron Maiden

One year ago I bought the last Iron Maiden album "The Final Frontier". I wrote a blog post in which I mentioned my very small Maiden collection and that it needed to grow.

A year has passed and here's the latest release that I picked up from the store yesterday:

This is a compilation of the band's last 20 years and it's also a follow up to the 2008 compilation "Somewhere Back In Time" which compiled the first ten years.

So, a year ago my Maiden collection consisted of only three vinyls. "Killers", "Piece Of Mind" and "The Final Frontier". Since then the collection has grew considerably and at the moment I've got 31 LPs, 12" singles and 7" singles. I've got at least one copy of every full length album the band has released except for the two albums they recorded with Blaze Bayley in the mid 90s and also Bruce Dickinson's comeback album "Brave New World". These are all quite expensive at around £50 or more, so we'll se when I'll get my hands on those. Iron Maiden is such a fun band to collect since there are so much to collect and luckily some stuff are relatively cheap. So far I'm trying to limit myself to just collecting UK and Japanese versions of the full-lengths. Let's see how long that lasts... The singles I want all copies though;)

Bon Iver

Yesterday I bought this record from our store:

So that's quite random you ask to buy the first Bon Iver album, just like that? Well the reason is simply this:

A few weeks ago I bought the new selftitled Bon Iver album and I've been listeningen to it almost non-stop eversince. What a great album! I have a very special relationship to these types of bands, the very low key singer/songwriter types of bands. A lot of people have been hailing the new Iron & Wine album that came i February for example, but I've yet to find out the brilliance of that album. It's the same thing with the new Fleet Foxes that came earlier this year. There's just something missing for me. I guess you would call this type of music indie pop/rock? It's quite a broad description and these bands that I've mentioned are all a lot different, but I would still put them in the same genre.

So to get back to Bon Iver... When there actually is a band within this genre I like, it's pure magic! This album does not only feature the best song of the year (opening track "Perth"), it's a beautiful journey from start to, almost, finish. The last song "Beth/Rest" sounds like it could have been on the Top Gun soundtrack or something. I don't know if Vernon is serious with this song or if he's being funny, I hope for the latter because in that case- it's hilarious!

So far I've listened to "For Emma..." two times and it's really promising. It's more "a-man-and-his-guitar" kind of music, which I'm not that big a fan of as you're supposed to be I guess. But like I said, when that kidn of music hits me, it hits me hard!

A live version of "Perth" in decent quality:

In the mail yesterday.

Yesterday I received two indie/alternative rock classics in the mail.

Sugar - Copper Blue

This Creation Records release from 1993 is the third album Bob Mould released after his Hüsker Dü split up. After two solo albums he formed Sugar and their debut is classic 90's indie rock. Most people are probably familiar with the biggest hit from the album:

Hüsker Dü - Warehouse: Songs And Stories

This double album proved to be the last release from Hüsker Dü. There is not much trace of the hardcore punk, that the band started out playing, on this record. This also features one of the best-known Hüsker Dü songs, "Could You Be The One".

This is actually the first Hüsker Dü vinyl I've bought so far. So I guess I'll have to get "Candy Apple Grey" and work my way backwards in their discography. Can't wait for their masterpiece "New Day Rising":)

What a day!

Two of my most anticipated this year are from my metal favourites Opeth and Mastodon who are both releasing new albums this fall.

Today both bands released the first songs from their respective albums.

Here you'll find Opeth's song "The Devil's Orchard" from the upcoming album "Heritage", which will feature only clean singing. The second album Opeth has released without growls.

And here's the new Mastodon track:

Robyn

I don't think anyone can blame me for not having a broad taste in music. More or less any genre is represented in my record collection. There are anything from classical vinyls (Mozart, Wagner etc.) to hip-hop (2pac, Beastie Boys etc.) to pop music (ABBA, A-ha etc.), and pretty much anything in between. Something that I don't have a whole lot of though is what might could be called as dance pop?

I mean in the vein of the brilliant Swedish artist Robyn. Today I received this album in the mail:

It completed my Robyn vinyl collection as I already had the Body Talk compilation. I don't think that there are any other releases from her on vinyl, other than some 12" remix stuff that I'm not that interested in.

Like I said I don't own a lot of records in this genre but after witnessing Robyn live on the Access All Areas conference a few years back I was so impressed by the performance that she instantly got a new fan. I saw her again at the Way Out West festival in 2009 and that was an even better concert! (You can't fail if you have  Dr. Alban performing with you;))

Update.

So a lot has happened in my life since I last updated this blog. Not only has the record collection continued to grow, but also the family has grown. With the addition my beautiful baby boy to the family I thought that my vinyl listening times would be more rare, turns out it's the other way around.

In our appartment we have two seperate living rooms. Each one is on seperate floors on the loft living room where we have our sofa and TV gets really hot this time of year so we don't want to expose our little one to that. Instead we've been hangin in our little record corner playing records to him more or less all day long.

It looks promising as it really sooths him to have music on and dancing around in his fathers arms (well I do most of the dancing, he's just lying there with a funny look on his face). His favourite so far is either Iron Maiden or Frank Zappa (I try to tell myself at least).

It actually looks like he could be a future death metal singer (at least he has the right looks for it, with the horns and all).

So hopefully this won't be me in a few years:

Stupid ebay seller!!!

I am really irritated right now! I just won three auctions on ebay.

I bought early editions of these three vinyls:
Led Zeppelin - I
Led Zeppelin - IV
Frank Zappa - Hot Rats

The total amount I won them for was only £17 so I was really happy. And I just received this e-mail:
Dear cirkusnisse,

Hi,

I am very sorry for the inconvenience after you following the auction for the Frank Zappa vinyl record but the items are going to be withdrawn from sale.

I have spoke to Rob Bellars who's collection these belong to and the feedback I got was that not nearly enough interest was shown, and he is not willing to sell at such low prices.

I understand that these items were listed at a low amount, the reason being to attract a greater field of bidders, a strategy which eBay itself recommends.

Again I am very sorry for any inconvenience this may cause and thank you for the interest shown.

Mark, on behalf of Rob Bellars.

p.s. Do not make any payment for this auction.

- charmmonkey

I replied with this and I'm still waiting for an answer:

Hi!


Thank you for your e-mail. However I do not agree with your notes.


When you list an item on ebay you accept the risk that your item might not get the attention an item like this might deserve. Like you say, a low starting price normally attracts more buyers but you also have to take into account that they actually might not get the attraction. In this case it's probably due to bad auctioning on your part with no picture and little information. But when you do list an item you commit to a possible sell if the auction gets a bid which all three items I bought got.


You can't just "try it out" and "see if it works".


A not completed auction from your part will result in negative feedback from me and an e-mail to ebay.


Best regards,
Richard

My Morning Jacket.

I haven't really listened to this band earlier, but after much praise over the new album I had to check it out.

I'm really impressed with this album and after listening to it almost non-stop for a few days it still keeps growing. It's a really varied album with great dynamics, a recipe for a good album. The A-side includes two dreamy rock songs and the album finishes of with two beautiful ballads on the D-side. The last song on the album, "Movin' Away", is a wonderful song that could've easily been featured on a best of album from John Lennon. I can't really put my finger on what but I really get a Lennon-vibe when I listen to that song.

Now I'm waiting for the Thurston Moore album to arrive in our store so I can give it a few listens. It sounds promising from what I've heard.

Not want you want to receive in the mail.

Is there anything more frustrating than getting badly packed vinyl in the mail?(I-landsproblem as you would call it in Sweden....)

You would think that a huge company like Nuclear Blast in Germany who sell lots and lots of vinyls would take good care of their vinyl when they ship, but apparently not...

This is what the vinyl looked like when I received it

A crack in the vinyl! Now, that's not often that you see. Splits in the inner sleeves and things like that are quite usual but cracks in the vinyl!? You don't want to see that.

It doesn't help that this is a rerelease of At The Gates first EP "Gardens Of Grief" pressed on brown vinyl in only 100 copies, it's sold out now already...

Tao Of The Dead

One of the best rock n roll albums of the year so far is ...And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead's latest release "Tao Of The Dead". I have never really listened to this band and never paid it much attention as I, for some reason, was of the impression that this band played some boring and lame indie pop of some sort. It turns out that they really don't. They play progressive rock of the best kind so now I have to explore their earlier releases as well.

So if you're not going to watch the Eurovision song contest final tonight I recommend that you give this album a couple of listens! Here it is on Spotify.

The Haunted - Unseen.

One thing that I really like about a lot of vinyl releases today is that you get a CD of the the album you buy in addition to the vinyl. The car is really a great place to listen to music but it's not very easy to listen to vinyl while driving:)

One of the more recent releases that had a CD as an extra feature was the new album buy the Swedish thrash metallers The Haunted. It has been playing non-stop in the car since i got it.

The Haunted has been one of my favourite metalbands and they have gradually moved away from a pure thrashmetal sound and on this record there are a few songs I wouldn't even call metal, it's great music though! This is a band that 15 years on in their career they still keeps developing in a positive manor. The record is on Spotify and especially the song "Disappear" has really caught my ear.

The Haunted is the band every In Flames fan SHOULD listen to;)

Opeth record store day release.

The 16th of April marked the fourth year of the "Record Store Day", celebrating independent record stores such as The Garden for example.

On this day there are several releases that are supposed to be available only on this day. I've got my self two of these releases. The first one I've already written about (the Foo Fighters "Medium Rare" vinyl). The second one I got I had to order of of Discogs as I wasn't able to get it in the store.

The release is the second 7" vinyl release from Opeth. The song featured is "The Throat Of Winter" which was featured in the video game God Of War and on the soundtrack of said game. It has only been available as an mp3 download earlier so it's about time it saw a "real" release.

The song is quite different from anything that Opeth has ever done before and the singer and main songwriter Mikael Åkerfeldt said that this is what he was aiming for so I guess he succeeded.

Dungen

One of my favourite bands recently has been the Swedish "ny-progg" band Dungen. A few years ago I started to collect everything about the band and I have a nearly complete collection. Last week I received one record that I've been looking for for a long time.

"Samtidigt" is a 12" EP that was only on sale during a tour the band did after before the release of "4". The EP contains of only one song. The nearly 15 minute freaked out live version of the song "Samtidigt". On "4" the song is split up in two different songs ("Samtidigt 1" and "Samtidigt 2"), I guess it would have been "too much" to have a 15 minute jam on a record:)

This release was limited to 500 copies and is hand numbered and it has sold at nearly $100 recently on eBay and I was lucky to get it at $40. A real bargain, eh?

Now the only vinyl that I really miss from the collection is the first one. To get this I will have to pay at least $150 so I guess I'll have to wait a little longer to have a complete Dungen collection...

Indie favourites.

Two of my most anticipated indie rock albums were recently released and they have found the way to my vinyl collection.

 First of there's the new Explosions In The Sky album "Take Care, Take Care, Take Care". This brilliant instrumental post-rock band has already provided us with three good albums so far in their career and I wonder if this, the latest one, doesn't top all of them? On this one they really nailed the dynamics of their music switching from the beautiful mellow parts to insane outbursts. A real contender to Mogwai as being the best instrumental album of the year.

 The vinyl release is a really cool one. It comes in a slip case and inside it a box set that folds out like the picture shows.It comes as a double vinyl and includes a postcard and a huge poster. Cool stuff!

The other album is the new from Fleet Foxes. I've been playing their debut record quite frequent ever since it's release and it stills keeps getting better and better. After a few listens to the new one I really feel that it has potential to grow to be just as good as the first one. Now, if only new music stops to be released, I might actually have the time to give this album the listenings it requires and deserves...

Foo Fighters.

I must say I'm quite good at updating this thing.... Not!

But what better way to update it with than with a post about one of the best bands in the world at the moment, Foo Fighters?

I've been a huge fan of Foo Fighters ever since the release of "The Colour And The Shape" and I have liked more or less everything the band has released since then. There is something about this band that I think attract a lot of different people. You have everyone from the typical radio hit fan to the indiekids and heavy rockers digging them, which is really impressive.

"Wasting Light" have been out for a few weeks now and I've had the chance to give it quite a lot of listenings.

When I first heard the single, "Rope", I was actually a little bit disappointed but the song grew on me. By the time of the release of the album I was really digging the song and I had big hopes for the album. And these hopes were really fulfilled. Maybe a contender to the best album of 2011 so far even?

Time will tell...

"Wasting Light" isn't the only FF album I've bought recently. "Medium Rare" was one of the RSD releases this year so I had to get my hands on a copy of that one as well.

Back home.

So now me and the "mrs" just got home after a weekend in Sweden. There I visited my parents, hung out with some wonderful friends got some more ink done, but most notably (at least in this blog) I visited the biggest record fair in Scandinavia at Solnahallen in Solna, Stockholm. There was a lot of stuff to look at and I'll make a bigger update from it tomorrow, possibly. I'm quite worn out today after lots of travelling so the sofa and Star Wars on the TV calls to me:)

Here are two pictures from the fair.

Lots and lots of people and even more records! I'm lovin' it!:)

To open or not to open? That's the question.

One of the big dilemmas you face as a record collector (at least I do), is whether or not you should open the more rare records you buy.

One of the most recent purchases in which this is a big problem for me is the new Killing Joke album "Absolute Dissent".

 

This particular edition comes in a slipcase and includes a printed slipmat. This version is also handnumbered and limited to 400 copies.

Mine is number 49 out of 400, as you can see, and I still haven't split the seal on it. I really want to hear the record as I think Killing Joke is a good band. I know it's on Spotify but we all know it's not the same ;)

An easy solution would be to always double up on these rare records, but I can't even afford to buy one copy of all the records I want, so I think that's out of the question.

It's not that I want to save this copy and make a good profit on it later on (I hope I never have to sell my record collection...) so what's really stopping me?

I believe I just have to use Spotify for this purpose if I still want the record sealed and rethink this...

Vinyl is heavy stuff! Pt. 2

I'm totally worn out!

Carrying vinyl, vinyl shelves, CD shelves and other heavy stuff we've had in the store, for eight hours two days in a row has totally made an impact on my body. Can barely lift my arms at the moment. And there's at least tomorrow left to move stuff.


Luckily we're done with most of the heavier stuff (got some things left) and now comes the boring part of cleaning out the old store. But after next weekend we'll come to the fun stuff, which is organizing the new store before we open on Saturday March 5th.

Really looking forward to this day since I really think it will be great! I will post some pictures both here and at our Facebook page.

Vinyl is heavy stuff!

Phew!

Finally back from work after working an eleven hour shift.

Today we had the final opening day at our current location with The Garden. When we closed at three today we started to move all our records to the new location and moving a couple of thousands of records is hard work. We finally found out the downside with 180 gram vinyl;-)

We're not nearly finished but we have lots of work ahead of us the next couple of days but the result will def. be worth it!

And the result will be Norway's only vinyl-only store! (this is just a guess though:-))

7" singles.

I found this relatively old picture today.

 

It's from back when we moved to the new appartment where we now live and I was sorting all the vinyl singles in alphabetical order. 

To be honest most of them belong to my dad and I'm "borrowing" them since he doesn't play them. This christmas though, I gave him a pre-amp to his reciever so now he can play his old vinyls again... Bad move on my part? He hasn't claimed them yet:)

A "new" blog.

So I've decided to move my blog and also I've decided to start to write in English. Most of my readers (which to be honest aren't that many, but still;)) are obviously Swedish and Norwegian but there are a few that I think would be interested to read this who doesn't understand the Scandinavian language.

So here you'll be able to keep up with my record collecting at stuff that's going on at "my" store The Garden.

For previous posts from the previous blog go here.