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Derek™

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Everything posted by Derek™

  1. Same. They seemed to have insane web coupons active at all times, so I’m only getting stung for like $18 and change after shipping. Still super annoying though, and I feel for anyone who has funds tied up. What a shit-show.
  2. I had to do a double-take from glancing at it earlier; absolutely would've bet money that it said Los Angeles, so I have no idea what happened there. But you guys are right. I dunno if Vegas is any better or worse, but at least it's closer [for me]. Probably not swinging it, but I agree that the lineup seems like you're bound to catch something great anywhere you turn.
  3. I think I’m going to uphold my tradition of not listening to the actual tracks, especially so far in advance of a release date (which we don’t even have yet). I do like to go into the new records 95% blind, I think that’s the most fun and rewarding. Way too many horror stories from people binging bootlegs for months and then feeling underwhelmed that there’s “not enough new material” when the album drops, or that the songs and their production just don’t “feel the same”. (Which, I mean… yeah.) I was able to whet my appetite with some very promising clips from the new songs last night, and that’s more than enough to keep new Godspeed atop my list of most-anticipated music. To each their own though.
  4. 2 new tracks debuted tonight. Lines up with a Belgian article that recently mentioned a new album in September. The video clips I heard were glorious… but I also say this as someone who’s really happy with their last album, and isn’t even remotely tired of them covering the same ground they do so well. Bits of the percussion and flow at a few parts were giving me major DMST vibes. Which is a good thing.
  5. It’s still a genuinely great track (and album), too. I know Sunbather wasn’t the very first album to merge black metal and shoegaze, but I think it was the first to do so with as much success as it saw. It really put that sound on the map and kicked the door off its hinges for more “blackgaze” bands to enter the scene. Sometimes I think back to this thread and all the VCers being hyped over the album’s teaser trailer, and singles as they dropped. Such a rad time to be a part of the forums and collectively gush about the record, especially when POs went live. I think they included immediately downloads for the entire album ahead of the release date. I remember everyone being pretty stoked on the first listen and [rightfully] circle-jerking the album in this thread. Really good times. Somehow can’t believe it was a whole decade ago… while also, simultaneously, feeling it was even longer. A lifetime ago.
  6. Or (more likely) just a wider press on black vinyl. I’d still gun for a copy on gold, but not for $75+ if that’s the actual MSRP.
  7. It’s also /5,000. Even if that’s worldwide distribution, that’s not limited enough to make me sweat or consider lining up with scalpers.
  8. I gave this a proper listen (for the first time) this afternoon, hoping I’d like it a bit more. Wasn’t 100% my bag but I still wanted to say that the packaging and variant you opted for look dope. I sort of imagine they’ll stick around for a while if I ever changed my mind in the near future, but hopefully this will make someone super happy to finally see on vinyl – if not the band themselves after such a wait.
  9. I went big-brain and found it on the Shop App. It’s like $7-8 more than PV but if you have Shop Cash built up, you can whittle the price down. I was able to checkout with a copy effortlessly.
  10. Damn, I needed that /100 to be a thing because these variants are atrocious. 😔
  11. Maybe in a minority here, but I didn’t care for their last album at all. I also kinda’ find Red Forest to land somewhere between “okay” and “decent” at best – I don’t think it holds a candle to the 2 albums before it. 🤷‍♂️ In more exciting news, anyone see those Caspian + ASIWYFA dates? That’s a tight bill.
  12. Yeah, Avalanche feels like maybe 1 year old or something. Wild to think it was a 2020 drop. I think he’s been on a roll so I’m very much down for this new one.
  13. I know the last album rocked the boat pretty hard for a lot of folks, but they haven’t missed in my books. Really excited to hear whatever they’re cooking up. George has allegedly said that their is still more “metal” (traditional Deafheaven) songs up their sleeve, so a flip to something more aggressive than Infinite Granite wouldn’t surprise me at all.
  14. Hardly a Kacey fan but as an outsider peeking in... – Last album kinda' blew. – New PO with no album art in sight. – New PO with no details of a variant. – New PO without a release date. – $15 shipping. Trying to lower the bar even further for what constitutes a preorder, huh?
  15. I’ll take your word on that. My half-minute of sampling was cursory at best and there’s no way I’m going to do a side-by-side comparison, but I trust that take. Someone @ me when those vocals go full Challenger Deep.
  16. (The new one was not worth sampling.) I misread your post, and hope you actually meant that the vocals are way too high in the mix. From cautiously curious to absolute nope in about 30 seconds.
  17. You’re disappointed because you can’t hear the vocals? Am I interpreting that right? Asking because the vocals are 100% the reason I can’t stomach this band. Actually enjoy some of the mathy songwriting and curveballs, but not enough to get over those vox. Maybe this new one is worth sampling…
  18. Would be pretty neat if we could ever get that alleged sophomore album.
  19. I'll chime in if not just to mix things up a little bit. I've been chipping away at this reply on and off in a separate tab for like a week now. Forgive any redundancy or incoherentness, I feel like it's probably all over the place. But the thread is starting to sputter out so... why not? 2023 felt no different than any other year of the hobby™, barring a few exceptions. In terms of how much did you end up buying?, the answer for me is – a lot. I'm either doing something very right or very wrong. But the biggest differentiator to years prior, I think, boils down to 1 concept: patience. Sometimes it took months for pre-orders to go live. Other times a release was riddled with delays for weeks or months on end. I've come to accept [some years back] that we no longer get the luxury of spinning a record the same day an album is released digitally. If a record shows up on release day – or early! – it's a rarity, and one I appreciate. But it's absolutely not the norm among the artists and labels I frequent, and that just is what it is. The silver lining there is that we sometimes get months to allow the dust to settle and decide if that new album is truly worth picking up. With that in mind, sites like Zia, Bull Moose, and Rough Trade were all key-players in my 2023 preorders. Any site that doesn't charge until shipment, with easy 1-click cancellations – those were my bread & butter. Can't tell you how many cancellations and re-orders I'd place with Bull Moose to maintain free shipping. Sometimes that meant that I'd receive a record 1-2+ months after everyone else, but it felt worth it. Again; patience. Record MSRP has been ass, I have nothing to really contribute to that discussion. I think Covid was just the perfect maelstrom of opportunity to up the price of records; a nice trajectory of record sales, crippled supply chains / materials, and newjack collectors thinking $50+ is acceptable to drop on a double LP because they've never known better. The wrong people took note of how willing collectors are to wait extended periods of time to receive a lackluster product of something they overpaid for... and here we are. Imagine spending $39 PPD for a bare-bone, no-frill, flimsy ass colored 12" that you had to wait 6 months to receive. You probably don't have to use too much of your imagination, because I bet that's happened to every single one of us in the last year or two, and I just see it more and more. Shit sucks. On the subject of MSRP, I will say I try my best to vote with my dollar. Labels trying to produce the bare minimum for $40 will probably still sell out of a limited release, but at least I won't be contributing to those sales. 🤷‍♂️ There were some pretty rare exceptions here and there since those are tough guns to stick to. Those Hum reissues were one of my favorite releases of 2024, and they were $40 a pop I think. (But also double LPs with nice jackets, and lots of love into the mastering and pressings.) Or Nouns' Still Bummed, which has been desperately overdo for a vinyl press. Also $40+ spent mumbling under my breath, but having the opportunity to own a cleaned-up mix on something that's not a lathe? Had to be done. (It was also released on the band's own label which they just opened. Overpaying for stuff sucks a little less when it's going to DIY roots.) Trying to think of what else felt different in 2023. I think I definitely coordinated a few more imports with friends, on stuff that was only available from abroad. Gotta' soften that blow as much as possible, when possible. Also being real with myself when cheaper options were offered. Do I need the extra 12" of remixes I'll never listen to, housed in the exclusive boxset casing, for an extra $25 imported? Or could I probably settle for an equally boring variant in a normal gatefold from Bull Moose and get free shipping? This was something I'd always ask myself, but I guess in the last year or two, I've become much more comfortable not going nuts to butts on every single pre-order I was excited about. It's cool to see more people become disenchanted with the idea that owning all releases for an artist is mandatory if you want to call yourself a true fan of said artist. There are some artists I thoroughly enjoy with an album or two that just suck. And no amount of bells and whistles on a fancy reissue are going to change that for me, so I'm not taking that bait. (Especially when said reissue is probably $30+.) On that note, I think in 2023 I've just placed more priority than ever on respecting the bang:buck ratio. People dropping $37 PPD on a 15 minute EP is cool, I guess, but it ain't for me – even if the EP is enjoyable. At the end of the day, I've found that no one gives a shit if you own every obscure split, 7", 10", comp, and cassette tape for an artist that you're into. Chase all that stuff if you genuinely love the hunt and it scratches some kinda' itch for you, but it's nonsense to feel like you need that stuff on your shelf to prove that you can hang with the "real fans". I see that mentality constantly on Reddit, it's wild. The last thing I'll touch on is that the people who are really assessing their shelf estate and wondering "am I really going to spend time listening to this more than once?" – 100%, that's the ticket right there. I've gotten pretty good at being honest with myself over that question, as years have gone on. I can shrug off quite a few "impulse buys" I know I'd never listen to. And I think I have a pretty good track-record on preordering stuff with confidence and not getting stung by it. (The new album from Grails was my 1 dud purchase of last year.) But with everything costing as much as it does anymore, absolutely ask yourself if it's worth actually owning, yeah. At the end of last year, I actually added a new feature to my collection's spreadsheet – an Attachment column. It's just a 1-5 rating on how attached I am to a given record in my collection, considering a few key factors (the music, the exclusivity, variant / packaging / press quality, the current value, sentimentality, etc.) At its essence, it's like asking "if I lost this record in a fire, how bummed would I be about having to replace it?" (A 5 would be crushed; very expensive or time-consuming to find a replacement in the condition my copy is in. And a 2 or lower would be indifferent or carefree.) I'm now in the process of revisiting everything I own and assigning it a rank, and the idea is to identify anything that's a 2 or lower to weed them out. It's not a perfect system, especially since it leans so hard into my own personal value which is purely subjective. But it's already helped me spot a few things here and there that I could live without, and with the size of my collection and amount spent in 2023, that's a healthy thing. I know I'll have a problem if I start accumulating anything from 2023 / 2024 that becomes ranked a 2 or lower, because it means by ability to sniff out staying power or replay value is dwindling and that's bad news. TL;DR – still bought a ton in 2023, but relied more on bundling for free shipping... even at the cost of waiting an extra month or two to receive my order. Coordinated with friends for imports. Avoided gimmick releases like usual and tried my best to "vote with my wallet" to dodge stuff excessively priced. Still plenty of good stuff to be had for fair prices and reputable labels, especially if you're fatigued on splatter variants and have no interest in paying extra for them. Still gunning for preferred variants, but also realistic with myself in not needing the best-of-the-best mega-deluxe-slipmat-boxset-signed-insert-bullshit version of everything, all time. That's about it.
  20. I actually want to see a new press of 200 with 20 colors /10, priced at $80 because each one has a different colored silkscreen sleeve. Really see how far the goobers will go to sustain muh rare variants.
  21. I hope that their remark on vinyl pertains to both SOS and C:D . If Evpatoria can press Golevka, there’s no reason why Jakob couldn’t make these 2 classics happen.
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