Foundation For Appreciation

Some bands just grow on you. You don't initially appreciate them, but over time you suddenly find yourself listening to them more and more. That was certainly the case with Foundation. I was digging their Hang Your Head 7 inch from 2009, but to be honest, I never really spent much time with their 2011 LP, When The Smoke Clears. Since it's release, I'd probably only listened to it about 15 times. It just never grabbed me...until earlier this year.

One day, recently, I was trudging through my workday, listening to the 2011 playlist on my iPod when the album came on. It suddenly hit me like a ton of bricks, and soon after that, I found I could not listen to it enough. Passionate and powerful Hardcore.

I've never sent out to collect Foundation records, but I've still managed to pick up more than a handful of different pressings over the years. While in the middle of my Foundation obsession, I couldn't resist an eBay search to just check out what what was currently out there. Yeah, I was just looking...I wasn't really going to buy anything...until I saw the United Blood fest cover. Fuck. I immediately knew that I was going to make it mine.

The record itself was their 7 inch preview of When The Smoke Clears. You know, those obnoxious records that have a song or two from the band's upcoming album, but lure you in with one exclusive track. So annoying. Still, it is worth it when it comes in a limited fest sleeve, hand stamped and numbered out of 150.

...if you don't listen to Avail, we feel so bad for you...

Wait. There is a possibility that some people might actually not listen to Avail? How could someone not like that band?

Foundation have such a strong early 90's Straight Edge Hardcore sound, so a tribute to Avail seems like an odd choice...but I've got to applaud the band for doing something a bit off the beaten path with their choice for their United Blood fest sleeve. Since this cover was a tribute to Avail's first 7 inch, I figured that I'd drag out my copy to get a picture of them side by side.

I'd tried to talk myself out of buing another copy of Foundation's When The Smoke Clears LP. There were three colors for the first pressing, and I only bought one copy when it was released. It would be stupid to buy a copy of the second pressing that Bridge Nine had available, right?

I currently can't get enough of this album, and during a recent stop at the Bridge Nine webstore, I couldn't resist the call and added another copy to the cart before checking out.

1,000 pressed on clear olive green vinyl. Damn, am I going to have to go back and buy a copy of that colored vinyl that I missed from the first pressing?