oh, how i was in excitement when relapse records announced the re-issues for the first three obscura records. i managed to get a hold on first press copies of "cosmogenesis" and "omnivium" in the meantime but for "retribution" there simply was no vinyl edition to chase down. so of course i was all over the pre-orders for the latter. i ordered directly from relapse europe although there was a wider colour press for distros and i actually wanted to avoid ordering from the label in the future. only the less limited bone white vinyl version definitely wasn't going to cut it.
strange enough, something always seems to go wrong when ordering from relapse. this time it wasn't their fault, though. the delivery company somehow ignored the delivery address on the mailer and sent the record to my old place. my wife, the kid and i moved in last year's october but out of an old habbit the delivery guy placed the parcel in the shed behind our old flat. the internet tracing told me it was delivered there. man, i was lucky my old neighbour handed me the unharmed record the other day. whatever, here we are with the first vinyl pressing of "retribution".
i never listened to the album before because when it is not on vinyl and i don't get the cd or tape version by chance in a physical store or so, i just have no desire to use a digital format these days. when i dropped the needle on the record for the first time, i was surprised by the sounds. this is a different kind of beast. the band had in comparison to "cosmogenesis" a complete different line-up and musically there was still a step to take. still, "retribution" has its fantastic moments and for any obscura nerd this is a must have. pressed on bone white inside clear with multi-colour splatter out of 250 copies. relapse records. 2018.
