First I suppose I should mention that this is ONLY available on 12” vinyl, which includes a coupon for a digital download by way of Deathwish Inc. Blacklisted is no stranger to these means of release (if you’re a true fan of the band, you’ll remember the vinyl exclusive release of their album, Peace On Earth, War On Stage, or the limited pressing of the split they did with First Blood, titled, Dead Mans Hand Volume: 3 which was also only released on vinyl.) There are plenty of vinyl collectors that obviously are not affected by this, but there’s a lot of other fans that I feel are missing out on this release. In my opinion, the vinyl exclusivity is a bad idea because it forces fans that want the mp3s to pay extra money for something they don’t need. It’s definitely better to give fans (which in this case should be defined as people that go to your shows and buy your records and merch, which puts food on your table and gas into the car you drive) more options for obtaining and enjoying your new music. It’s no secret that a lot of people in this day and age of the iPod and peer-to-peer file sharing software will just “acquire” (read: steal) this album. But not releasing this on other format (i.e. CDs) certainly doesn’t give the Blacklisted fans that want to hear this much other option. The true fans surely will go out and purchase the vinyl anyway, to get the digital download card that goes with it, thus getting it onto CD (if one were so inclined to burn one), but then be stuck with a 12 dollar album format that they won’t do anything with. People will respond to this with internet thuggery saying, “yeah well there’s no money to be made in selling CDs anymore because of piracy and the small turnaround they’ll acquire from CD sales because of it,” ultimately making a vinyl exclusive sound like a good business decision by the band.
But what most people with unfounded arguments as such don’t know is that the music on No One Deserves To Be Here More Than Me was most likely recorded on analog, which is then produced and pressed onto vinyl. End of transaction. If they wanted to make CDs, they would have to take a whole other long, pain-staking step of converting the analog to digital and then pressing CDs. Or, I can do you one better: if they were planning from the beginning to produce the album via a CD format, they would have recorded to digital from the start, completely bypassing analog. Another fact is that when Heavier Than Heaven, Lonelier Than God was leaked a year ago, Blacklisted flipped shit and traced the leak to a kid in Canada and more or less threatened his life. Certainly stemming from this incident it would be in their best interest to be more careful with future pressings of albums, all the more reason there was no real release date set for this new album in addition to only being available on vinyl. But even with the argument that there’s no money to be made in CDs in relation to the overwhelming masses file sharing, pirating, and having mass-produced CD burners available on any personal computer nowadays, it’s still blatantly obvious that CD players and iPods are bought a hundredfold over record players. I rest my case.
Now that the business aspect of the release has been addressed, I can get down to the nitty-gritty. First of all, Blacklisted has and probably always will be referred to as a hardcore band. However, calling No One Deserves To Be Here More Than Me a hardcore album is quite a stretch. Frankly, aside from it being done by a hardcore band, there’s really nothing hardcore about it. It has quite a rock and roll, almost grunge feel to it. It reminds me of Foo Fighters and a non-electronic version of Stabbing Westward mish-mashed into one big pile of shit. It’s waaay different than anything they’ve done to date. And while I suppose it is musically good for what it is, I don’t know if this record is really my cup of tea. Blacklisted messed with my Blacklisted, and if this is the path their musical careers are taking, you may potentially see less and less people attending their shows. It’s definitely bold, to say the least. It’s obvious that each track has been very carefully laid out and executed, and attention should be paid especially to this aspect. Although we can’t really call this a hardcore record, and perhaps Blacklisted has chosen to distance themselves from the scene, the album is still overall quite enjoyable. It’s just at the same time a little disheartening to those of us fans that were expecting another heavy hitter from these guys. It took me quite a few listens to get into it, but I do like it. Just not as much as their other releases (after all, it’s got to be like a gorilla on your back to try and top the Our Youth Is Wasted EP, which is also found on the full length We’re Unstoppable.)
Though I doubt this is the last we’ll hear from them, if my speculation is true that Blacklisted is trying to morph into something more outside the hardcore scene, I feel there’s quite a big margin for a serious decline in popularity. The new record has a series of interludes that honestly just seem to suck time and do not really need to be there, as well as something you don’t see in hardcore bands, a slow, acoustic track halfway through titled The P.I.G. (The Problem Is G.) Despite coming up short in the hardcore sound department, the album still rocks as hard as it possibly can, albeit an extreme polar opposite in comparison to what they’ve done prior. Stand out tracks for me are Everything In My Life Is For Sale, and Our Apartment Is Always Empty. I think the highest I can bring myself to give this is a 6 out of 10. It’s a good effort, but it’s definitely not what I anticipated it being and honestly, it’s a little frightening and I hope they don’t keep this up and get back to the roots that made them arguably one of the most popular hardcore acts out of Pennsylvania.
Blacklisted proclaimed: “let the music speak for itself.” The preceding statements are what the music said to me.
Davey Bx
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