To continue the Morning Again report, let’s discuss a release with the other vocalist that came after Damien. Most recordings of Morning Again were actually with Kevin Ray Byers. Kevin also wrote very intelligent lyrics and very progressive considering the context of time. I learned heaps from those texts and still love Morning Again to the death.
The release I’m going to discuss isn’t brought to me by Good Life Recordings because it was released by an American label. I actually didn’t know of it’s existence until xJustinx of STUCK IN THE PAST sold them to me. For which I’m grateful.
Anyway to get to the point. The release is actually a split of Morning Again with Shoulder. Put out by Moo Cow Records out of Wisconsin USA. Don’t know the full story, but the record’s insert tells us that these were recorded in September 1996. So despite the change of vocalist they quickly recorded new tracks. For your information, the recordings for the “Cleanest War” 12inch were in January the same year.
The record had (according to Discogs) three pressings: the black out of 2000 copies and a colored pressing on red out of 200 copies:
The tracks were:
- “Cradle Of Empty Promise”
- “Martyr”
Let’s not forget the other band, Shoulder. They did a song based on a break-through musical written in the 60’s. The song was called “Flower Drum Song”. It was a band from Ontario in Canada!
As you know these songs were adopted by GLR to release on the “Martyr” 12inch…
Hi Willem, I'm loving these Morning Again posts – they're one of my favourite 90s metalcore bands. So good. One thing though, I'm under the impression that the lyrics you mention were actually written by John Wylie (the guitarist) and not Kevin. Unfortunately my collection isn't anywhere near me so I can't verify it myself but have a look at the liner notes of As Tradition Dies Slowly as I believe that's what I got it from. The lyrics are indeed something, I can hardly pick a favourite.
Thanks for your input André! You might be right concerning to origins of the lyrics. Will have to doublecheck it myself too.
Andre and Willem: Very much true. John wrote almost of the lyrics and music.
Thanks for clearing that out Chip! You're the Morning Again connoiseur…