finally the vinyl gods had mercy with my sorry soul and granted me deliverance through a vinyl pressing of killswitch engage's breakthrough record "alive or just breathing". the album was released in 2002 but i think, it wasn't until late 2003/early 2004 that i listened to the opener "numbered days". it was right after school in front of a small super market which was close to the school building, where a friend of mine handed me his second headphone plug and turned up the volume of his discman.
the song blew me away. it was something completely new to me. the riffing of classic metal combined with hardcore groove and big choruses that were not cheesy because of the unique voice of jesse leach. i was all over it and got my hands on a cd copy which i played to death. "alive or just breathing" came just in time to fill the void that nu metal left after its downfall and killswitch were, along with bands like unearth or shadows fall, leaders of a new genre soon to be called metalcore.
when i started to collect vinyl and set out to get vinyl copies of albums i held dear and had already on cd, killswitch engage's sophomore release was always high on the list of albums i would have liked to see a vinyl pressing of. now, fifteen years after its initial release, roadrunner comes up with an anniversary pressing which is technically the first press. i am not one hundred percent satisfied with it, though. i really would have liked to see roadrunner sticking to the original cover instead of this worked over variant.
and of course a coloured variant would have been cool also. well, 180gr black vinyl looks sharp as well. the upside is the inner gatefold with all the cool band pictures from back in the day and the very informative insert with loads of liner notes by band members, former companions and label employees. for example roadrunner was close to drop all that was metal from their roster because the genre seemed dead in the early 00's. killswitch brought a breath of fresh air and got the label back on track. don't know how many copies were made. roadrunner records. 2002/2017.
