There was never ever featured Emo before. With Sense Field that was a Revelation Records and obviously also a Good Life Recordings band at the endpoint, we definitely have a standard in the genre. Although they released on many more labels, Revelation Records and Good Life Recordings are the most obvious Hardcore labels in their discography. Sense Field was active from the mid nineties up to the beginning of the 2000 decade and had Jon Bunch of Reason To Believe on vocals.
While trying to complete the Good Life Recordings catalogue I stumbled upon this record. I bought it at a bargain price at Good Life distribution on black vinyl but it was just sat in my record boxes without notice for a few months. When I finally found a good moment to check the music out I put it on my turntable.
Listening to it, I was immediately carried away by the sensitive and clean vocals. But I also liked it for the whole of it. I’m usually a purist hardcore listener. Do not listen to much else. But this is truly fantastic emotional stuff. That is worthy of mentioning here for sure. And I needed to obtain the coloured version for doing that. Found a fresh copy of Discogs .com for another bargain price.
I can’t immediately confirm or describe why I like this. I guess everybody has an emotional side and these emotions are appealed to by these songs. Like a welcome outlet for them. But then there’s the question of why exactly this stuff and not usual emotional rock or that proliferates the hit charts?
The answer is to be found I think in the fact that this music is rooted in Punk Rock. It’s filled with passion and heartfelt melodies. Atmospheric guitarwork that creates floating sounds are also to be heard. But maybe it’s also the contrast with the usual aggressive emotions in Hardcore that speaks to me so much. It’s like a loosening of oppressed emotions by listening to grimy Hardcore day in day out.
This record is actually a split between Sense Field and Onelinedrawing. It was previously released in 2000 in the United States on a seven inch. This is the twelve inch ep version and has three more songs. It was pressed on vinyl in Europe only by Good Life Recordings in 2001.
I think the record looks damn fine and red vinyl was the best choice. It compliments the brown of the cover and forms a contrast with the blue robot.
Generally Good Life Recordings seems to keep me surprised with it’s diversity of releases and stubborn originality in the Hardcore genre. They didn’t follow the path of traditional Hardcore like sheep, they tried to bring innovation in the genre by cutting different genres like Emo, Metal, Rap into to mix. And so renewed the standards of it. This is exactly one aspect of the label that defines it so much…