Bl'ast Of Power

Last year, Southern Lord and Dave Grohl cooked up a mighty slab of Bl'ast! with the release of Blood!. While I've had copies of the three Bl'ast! albums since the late 80's, that piece of vinyl really woke me up to how good they really were.

When I heard that Southern Lord was releasing some new recordings of The Power Of Expression sessions, I was quick to jump in and buy one.

Apparently Bl'ast! had three recording sessions in their attempt to capture the songs on tape. Is it overkill to release all three sessions across this triple LP set? Die hard fans may disagree with me here, but in this case, yes, this is too much. In my opinion, the final session that was used for the original album is really the only one worth spinning. While the songs from this last session sound amazing, I will not spend any more time listening to the band's first two attempts at recording their album. They just aren't anything that I need.

Still, the packaging for this is amazing, and makes this release worth owning. Crystal clear vinyl...heavy cardboard packaging...a nice play on the album title with The Expression Of Power...and the artwork is vastly superior to the original. Like the cover for Blood!, I love the dark, Sabbathy vibe for this release.

Again, this release from Southern Lord helped me really appreciate Bl'ast!. I wonder if they will make an attempt to turn me on to Take The Manic Ride with another reissue at some point.

Blood Bl'ast!

I don't know a whole lot about Bl'ast. I enjoy them, but I don't really spend a whole lot of time with their records...in fact I don't own a single piece of vinyl for them. There was a lot of hype when Double Cross announced that the band had found some long lost recordings, and I got sucked into it, and quickly stepped up to order a copy from Southern Lord.

With a sound like mid-80's Black Flag, and an album cover that is reminiscent of the first Black Sabbath album...there was no way I was going to be able to resist buying this.

The album contains unreleased recordings from the In My Blood session, the main difference is the addition of a second guitarist. Like I said, I'm not too familiar with Bl'ast, so I can't really say how much these songs differ from their originals. All I know is that the songs on Blood, just sound amazing.

The limited red vinyl pressing includes a bonus 7 inch, which contains different recordings of the Alice Cooper and Germs covers that initially appeared on their School's Out 7 inch.

Overall, this entire thing was very well done, and I'm glad that I grabbed one while they were available.