i know, i know, i am late. expire's first full length 'pendulum swings' was a real grower and i enjoyed this album very much. so actually i should have been all over the place when it came to the release of their new effort 'pretty low'. but at the time of its release onto the human race, my sole interest was drawn to metal. alot of mastodon, cattle decapitation and high on fire got in the way. and still is but not as strong. so after my holiday i had some money left to burn, and what better place to do so than burnout record store, hamburg.
i entered the store with a plan. included in this elaborate intend was the purchase of a record, i ignored for far too long. as i saw before on jake's blog, 'pretty low' was pressed on lovely split coloured vinyl and actually i wanted a copy of that pressing. problem as always were the limitations. the split colour was the medium limited colour-way, so it was unlikely that burnout would have it in store. but not impossible. with an optimistic state of mind i rushed to the hardcore racks and grabbed the first copy i saw. i opened it and luck wasn't my partner this day (how right i was - but read on - you will know why later on). the least limited colour-way staring back at me. i opened another with the same result. okay, whatever, i looked more closely at the record and thought, man, that white w/ black haze looks awesome! suddenly i wasn't that disappointed in my find and dragged it to the counter.
after that i went to saturn, hamburg to check the metal section. they have a good metal corner but the hardcore selection is, let's say, limited a.k.a. not existent. so you may understand my curiosity to find a copy of 'pretty low' among the alternative section. a bad feeling claimed place in my belly. i pulled out the vinyl just to see what it looked like. oh damn, of course it was the split colour. ah man, what to do now? should i buy it and try to give back the white copy and ask for the money at burnout? i was thinking to and fro but in the end settled with the copy i already had. and i'm fine with that. if i had really wanted the split colour-way badly, i would have gone the extra mile. the album, by the way, is awesome. expire didn't change much but i like this record a bit more than 'pendulum'. it sounds more like a union, one crisp chunk of heavy metallic hardcore. fantastic! more of this! bridge9 records. 2014.
