back when i bought my first crowbar piece of vinyl at kiel's blitz records store, i also held a copy of "sonic excess in its purest form" in hands but only walked away with "odd fellows rest". in hindsight i regretted that move quite a bit because i found it hard to obtain a copy afterwards. at one point all reasonable priced copies vanished from ebay and discogs and i never saw another one sitting in physical store.
i thought, i just wait for an ebay auction to get my hands on the record and focused on other things. time passed and i forgot about the album. when i finally saw the band live with converge in leipzig this year, i was blown away by their show. crowbar was close to beat converge to second place in terms of intensity and so their appearance served as great reminder to get that record eventually. just out of curiosity i checked ebay again and look and behold, there were a few reasonable buy-it-now options by a commercial seller from switzerland. i used to buy from them in the past and was never disappointed. no change with this order.
"sonic excess in its purest form" was released in 2001 by spitfire records. a record label completely unknown to me. a little research unearthed the information that the label isn't active anymore these days and that they released mostly liscenced stuff for the north american or brazilian market. i believe this crowbar album was one of their genuine releases. anyway, they never did a vinyl version back then and so back on black handled the job fourteen years after its initial release.
the presentation by back on black is very nice as usual with this british, re-issue specialised label. sturdy gatefold sleeve, black dust sleeve and heavyweight coloured vinyl. love the band picture on the inside of the gatefold. what a bunch of handsome dudes, right? these guys have class standing around half-naked and looking real happy. hilarious. the album is fantastic musically. i love "repulsive in its splendid beauty" in particular. 500 copies on clear blue vinyl. back on black. 2015.
