First Verse

I recently won the first Verse record, simply titled Four Songs, on eBay. It's the first pressing on black vinyl and limited to 500. I saw that it was up for auction with no bids and a starting price of $2.75. I figured that I might be able to pick it up for cheap, and won as the only bidder. I remember buying this on CD when it was first released in 2003. At the time I was listening to a lot of punk rock like Good Riddance, Dillinger 4 and Anti-Flag...still good stuff, but I had pretty much lost touch with what was going on in the underground hardcore scene. I remember stumbling across the How's Your Edge messageboard, and reconnecting with a friend from the old Boston scene. Anyway, a lot of people were talking about this band, What Feeds The Fire, that had recently broken up and a couple of members were in this new band called Verse. They were talking about bringing back the early 90's style of straight edge hardcore, and mentioned Outspoken as an influence. Being such a fan of Outspoken, I was excited to check out this new band and try to reclaim that excitement in hardcore. I bought the CD and while it was good, it didn't really grab me the way that I'd hoped. It wasn't until Verse released the Rebuild album and seeing them play with The First Step that I really started to fall in love with this band. So kind of like Champion, the first output from Verse seems kind of mediocre, but seeing where the band is, and how they have grown, and can appreciate this first seven inch for the raw, sincere hardcore that it is.