boy, february is going to be a weak month for new additions to my vinyl collection. we will see if i even get to the five-posts-mark this month. their simply isn't much new stuff to get and since last year i find it more and more difficult to obtain used stuff, mostly because the titles i am still missing are usually rare bits. that builds the bridge to today's topic: rare bits, also known as animals as leader's debut record. since i stumbled upon this band accidentally last year, i wanted more of them. i pre-ordered their new record "the madness of many" and am still waiting on it to be shipped, the third record "the joy of motion" is a pain in the ass to obtain and so i concentrated on the self-titled debut.
i searched all my known sources and was pretty close to buy a coloured first press from a guy from deadformat.net. oh yeah, one of that lovely green/orange merge copies. he agreed with my price but unfortunately was one of that u.s. shipping only dudes. so after he found out that oversea shipping was required he backed off. then there were a few sketchy ebay auctions but they all seemed to be black vinyl and i didn't want to take the pricey gamble. two weeks ago i got a discogs notification for a black friday rsd pressing from 2015.
this version comes in a gatefold sleeve with 3-d image and glasses and on clear red and blue vinyl. the colour-way wasn't my favourite but i learned not to be picky when it's about animals as leaders colour vinyl. good price, i bought it. somewhere along the ordering process the seller told me it was actually two clear blue records asking me if i still wanted it. i checked back. whereas the rsd version is limited to 1.000 copies, this one was out of only 250 copies. the downside was this version comes in a slip sleeve without the 3-d imagery. ah well, as i said, i learned not to be picky and so i took it. musically it is a masterpiece, plain and simple. harmonies, heavy riffing, technical diversity, emotions of every possible sort - all without a single spoken or sung word. 250 copies made exclusive to u.s. independent stores. prosthetic records. 2009/2014
