Fresh For 2010, You Suckas

Sick Of It All play their 25th anniversary show this month in New York City. 25 years is way past the average life expectancy for Hardcore bands. Hardcore bands are made to hit fast and hard...and then get the fuck out of the way for the next set of kids. Bands that hang on too long tend to lose their fire...their sense of urgency. Many people will argue that's the case with Sick Of It All. To be honest, I had given up on them. I loved the band longer than most, and stuck with them up until Life On The Ropes in 2003. It was an okay album, but something was missing. Death To Tyrants in 2006 made even less of an impression. I was done, and could not care less when Based On A True Story was released last year. Not interested...until Marcus posted about the vinyl for their album on his blog. He talked so highly about it, I had to check it out.

The problem was, the vinyl appeared to not be for sale in the States. Seems as though the band's new label, Century Media, only released the vinyl in Europe. I called in a couple of favors, and had Marcus pick me up a copy.

I knew that the album had been pressed on a few different colors of vinyl. Marcus had blue, and therefore I assumed that the one he picked up for me was blue as well. I was kind of surprised to find that mine was clear vinyl. It was cool to receive something different. The album itself meets the high expectations that were set. It sure isn't 1989, but for a band 25 years into it, they can still bring some intensity. Nicely done.

After Marcus agreed to pick me up a copy of the vinyl, months and months went by without seeing it. I would occasionally think about it, but I was so busy with the other records that were filling my mailbox, that I figured it would arrive sooner or later. Around the middle of February, Marcus sent me an email, checking to see if the S.O.I.A. album arrived safely. He had mailed it just before Christmas, and we were both surprised that it hadn't shown up yet. Disappointed, we both thought the worst...after almost two months since it shipped, the package was most likely lost in the mail system. One week later, the package arrived at my doorstep...with a December 24th post date. The package must have ended up on a slow boat across the Atlantic. Welcome home.