in the moment i'm really working on putting together the
high on fire records set. with this purchase here i have now three and still
three to go. but i know this will work out pretty well as all the other records
i need, 'sorrounded by thieves', 'blessed black wings' and 'snakes for the
divine' are still available from various sources.
in my hands here is the re-press of high on fire's first
full length 'the art of self defense' from 2001. when i was lastly in hamburg's
finest record store, burnout records, buying mastodon's 'call of the mastodon'
record i also looked through the high on fire section. among other was sitting
this baby. i was looking at it thinking about getting it or not.
it had a hefty price tag of almost thirty euros on it and so
i wasn't sure about it. in the end i put it aside hoping i could find an less
expensive copy on the internet. time went by and so did my london trip. after
that i had some money left to burn and of course i would put it towards some
new records.
as a constant reader you might remember that i bought a clear purple copy at burnout store back then. time went by and at some point in mid 2015 i came across some copies which were on sale at the southern lord eurpean shop. they had almost every colour of the re-press for lousy 15 bucks on offer. considering that i got the clear purple copy for twice as much, i couldn't pass up to buy an upgrade copy.
i took the brown version and gave my purple one to a friend. after i threw it on my turntable
the first thing that came to my mind was, that this sounded doomier than the
other records i knew from high on fire, 'death is this communion' and 'de
vermis mysteriis'. slower and a more sleep like approach. but as this is the
first post-sleep record that matt pike worked on, this seems natural.
this re-press also includes the two songs from the original
7“ that tee pee records put into the second press package of their release of
'the art of self defense'. these two sound more like the style they developed
after 'the art...', faster, more energetic. but don't get me wrong, i really
like this first album alot. it just sounds different to their other stuff.
furthermore their first demo recordings included as well. real fanboy package.
southern lord really did an outstanding job with this
re-press. massive gatefold sleeve of thick and sturdy card. it's that thick
that i couldn't store it in my usual reclosable pvc sleeves, because i couldn't
close them up. had to use an slip pvc sleeve here. a nice 24-page booklet
attached to the inner gatefold with many pictures of the band and a poster. even the card
inside the sleeve is purple coloured. top notch presentation! the new colouring
of the cover art and the whole package all around favoured the semi-translucent brown of
the vinyl. put up against the light it looks more like a dark red. 500 made. southern lord.
2001/2013.
