It must really suck when you send out promos with the wrong album on them.

[Jim LotFP]

I am a Wuthering Heights fanboy. Sponsored them at ProgPower two years ago ($500) and I couldn't even go to the concert.

Got a promo of the new album, The Shadow Cabinet, last week.

ssuuucckkkkkeeeeddd

Generic heavy/speed/power, boring as shit, with the modern production covering it up.

I even took the CD back out of the stereo to see if the wrong CD had been tucked into the Wuthering Heights promo sleeve.

It had the right CD label. Correct number of songs.

Fuck. Another favorite down the shitter. I'd been told they were heavier and angrier this time out but I didn't know they'd lose all their character!

Well, I gave it another chance today. Played Far From the Madding Crowd and then the new one immediately after. Sounds like a totally different band. Even the wife complained that the singer sounded different.

Nils Patrick Johansson is kind of a vocal chameleon though, he sounded like three different guys last album. So he could be singing this way now. And it wouldn't be difficult at all for Wuthering Heights to stop being so goddamn folky and interesting and just go for what's more popular sound-wise.

I took the CD out AGAIN to make sure it really matched the promo sleeve. Yup, Wuthering Heights on both. Listened more... funny how the song titles never show up in the lyrics.

HMMM.

HMMM.

Could it be?

I started checking the lengths of the songs on CD.

They don't match the fucking track lengths given on the back of the promo.

Holy fucking shit!

Holy fucking shit!

I'd been avoiding talking to Claus from Intromental for a week because I didn't want to tell him that I thought the new Wuthering Heights sucked ass.

And it's just a manufacturing error?

So, either the wrong album got pressed on a Wuthering Heights CD and there are a lot of journalists hearing the wrong band thinking it's Wuthering Heights (likely), or somebody misprinted the track lengths on the promo sleeve (very unlikely).

*phew*

So I still want to hear this goddamn album.

 

[Occam's Razor]

"heavier and angrier" is always tricky, having in mind the latest Evergrey, Metallica and probably a hundred other albums. In the 90s, this was called the Pantera-disease.

 

[Jim LotFP]

"heavier and angrier" is always tricky, having in mind the latest Evergrey, Metallica and probably a hundred other albums. In the 90s, this was called the Pantera-disease.

Well from what I've been told I'm guessing it's along the same lines lyrically as The Locust Years, which was an angrier album than The August Engine, and that turned out fine, you message board troll, you!

 

[Occam's Razor]

I may be ugly, but I am no troll.

It is a widely spread (mis-)conception though that additional heaviness and anger cannot mean anything else than a pimped up production and unimaginative riffing, respectively a street attitude as far as lyrics, singing and a band's image go.

Heaviness and fury that are less placative are not perceived as what they are. The worst thing I heard was that Sean Reinert could not play drums at all when somebody heard him on the Aghora debut - because: no big drum production here.

 

[circus_brimstone]

Terrorizer fucked up their latest issue by including double CDs that were pressed incorrectly. The regular one featuring signed bands has the unsigned band coating on the disc, and vice-versa.

 

[Occam's Razor]

Maybe that got noticed only because the signed bands sounded more interesting all of a sudden than the unsigned ones - or were it only run-of-the-mill underground noisemakers?

 

[Jim LotFP]

I've been informed by their management that it would seem I have the only copy like this. He checked a pile of promos in the office, no problem, and reviews have been published on the web already which were obviously for the right album.

Weird!

 

[DBB]

And it's just a manufacturing error?

Hmmmm…with this, Brimstone’s Terrorizer example and now mine, maybe something is afoot.

I went up to the Metal Haven today and decided to finally pick up the Victor Griffin-era Pentagram re-releases. Normally, I’ll sit down on the front stoop, light up a smoke and go through my booty, but since I have found a lot to park in that is cheap and only a block away I decided to walk to the car and then sit down and perform this ritual. Well, I got through the LPs I bought, when the attendant I gave my ticket to said he was taking off and that he would have to give me back my ticket so that the next one would know that I had already paid, I said no need and took off.

Got back to the friend’s house we were visiting in Chicago and sat down and opened up the new copy of Relentless. Noticed first that there was a slit in the digipak for a booklet that was empty and thought “fuck!” Then the CD caught my eye…it had “At the Gates Suicidal Final Art” stamped on it. “Fuck!” again. Called up Mark Weglarz, the owner of the Metal Haven, and told him what had happened and he said that he had another copy in stock, and that I could trade it in for a replacement, but he opened that up and it was the same as my mixed-up copy.

When I went back to trade in the copy of messed-up pressing of Relentless for a different CD, Weglarz was gone, but I told the guy manning the register that this was the first time that I had ever had this happen to me, but he said it was not too out of the ordinary--but that it had been happening much more frequently lately.

Don’t really know what to make of it, but an interesting collection of examples in a short period of time.