Monday, April 11, 2011

By A Thread - s/t lp

I am actually pretty surprised to be writing about this record for a few reasons.
  1. Until the pre-order for this was listed on the Revelation e-mail I get every Friday, I didn't know By A Thread were still a band.
  2. I had no idea Revelation were still interested in post-hardcore, emo tinged bands from the 90's.
  3. If it isn't a book, comp or discography, I didn't know Revelation were still releasing new music. That Living Hell album isn't exactly "new" anymore.
As it turns out, I guess I like surprises.

By A Thread were a Vancouver band that fell in with the whole post-hardcore wave of the mid to late 90's. We liked them immediately because they had the whole "Former member of Strain" tagline that gave them instant legitimacy!

Their last lp, "The Last Of The Daydreams" was released back in 1999 and fit in along the whole Elliott, Farside, Texas Is The Reason sound that Revelation had going on back then. It was really good for the time.

I decided to hold off on the color pre-order this time as their last album still had the limited color vinyl around six years after it was released and there were only 226 of them! I figured I could get one without spending more on postage than the cost of the album. Patience.

As it turns out, my local store had a copy of the color vinyl in and I picked it up this weekend.

The limited color is a grey/silver mix. Goes nicely with the cover and artwork. I don't know the pressing numbers yet.

Two sided glossy insert/lyric sheet.

Musically, I was once again surprised. The opening track "Fashion" for the first 20 seconds sounds like a lost New Order track. Hmmm. You can check it out here on youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ugzpcw1Ya1I
Listening all the way through, the band were firmly in the post-hardcore sound but I would say even more indie as there isn't much heavy anything going on.

Maybe it is the improvement of the weather, but I am really digging this record. Hey it's Spring!

4 comments:

  1. I really liked this band's first lp when it came out but i can't really muster any excitement for this one in 2011. But, y'know, its on Rev so its inevitable i will pick one up at some point.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I loved their first one as well. Bummer I never picked up the limited vinyl as I was in a CD buying phase when I got it. This new one is great too, but if you look at the lyric sheet I think it says most of the songs were recorded in '05-06, so are they still really a band now in '11?

    ReplyDelete
  3. New Order??? N.O. would never write something like this this is bad shame on you

    ReplyDelete
  4. Doug, By a Thread aren't around any more, although i was bugging John that they should do a show to celebrate this LP and he seemed into the idea. I think this LP was recorded a few years ago, not sure though. I know that about 5 years ago i found a By a Thread record on soulseek that never came out.

    ReplyDelete