I am marching to the beat... Part Holy Roar

Sometime in late 2010 (November maybe?), Touche Amore hit the UK and Europe in support of ...To the Beat of a Dead Horse. This occasion was celebrated with a one time UK pressing of To the Beat on Holy Roar records. Alex over at Holy Roar went all out on this, and it really paid off well, as it looks fantastic. There are tons of cool extras added in here, but more about that after we've had a look at the records!

As a one time pressing of 500, the colours we're split to 100 and 400. So here we go: 100 black/white split.

Next up is black/400. Out of the two I stumbled upon this copy first, completely by accident with a cheap Buy It Now deal on eBay.

That was kind of short and sweet right? Now on to the fun stuff! This pressing stands out because so much actually changed here, making it a really desirable variant for anyone interested in this band. First off, although a little hard to notice on a photo, this particular pressing was a 10'' as opposed to a 12''. It also contained 4 bonus live tracks from their hometown venue Chain Reaction, placing 15 tracks onto a 10''. For you audiophile nerds out there, at best those 4 tracks add at best 6 minutes to an album that clocks in at under 20 minutes, so the pressing wasn't affected in any way and still sounds great. But hopefully you begin to see what I mean by going all out on this one!

Now, on to the design changes. As mentioned in my previous post, the album cover has been re-drawn a few times over the various pressings/issues of the album to accommodate the amount of space Nick had to play with. I caught up with him after one of their shows last year and asked him about it. He said that the original had two much detail in the rain, and on a 10'' cover as opposed to a 12'', the rain merged and look messy so it was re-drawn.

Here are some close up's of the two covers to show some comparisons. Here's the 10''

And here's the 12'' . The rain is the most notable difference here, but pay close attention to the cloud shape, the figure on the bike; there are quite a few big changes here. There's something that really gets me about the cover being re-drawn; again it really makes it worth it for anyone with a 12'' copy for closer comparison. And the extra tracks are great too. Really capturing the live sound of this band, and how mental a hometown audience can get!

There are another couple of differences here that I completely forgot to take pictures of. For example, the massively oversized sticker on the 10'' cover... The 12'' copies in the first two presses also had these stickered sleeves, but the sticker were a lot smaller. There's probably some inside joke about the smaller record needing a bigger sticker or something. By the 3rd press however the gatefolds were too thick and so didn't come in a poly sleeve, so the sticker was dropped.

Also, from the first two photos, you can see that the lyrics and thanks are printed on the inner sleeve as opposed to an insert. This looks really great as both sides are absolutely plastered with information. With both records only being in black or black/white, this also provides a cool continuity with the colour theme. It just works, and it looks awesome. I've probably missed another thing or two I forgot to photograph, like the inclusion of the Holy Roar logo on the back cover along with the 6131/ Collect logos. And the oversized outer sleeve, but how many photos can a guy take?

Either way, this variant is definitely worth hunting down if you're a fan of this LP, it makes a great comparison to the 12'' and the bonus tracks are killer. I'm still missing the t-shirt that came with this pre-order. If anyone has one and wants to hook a guy up, let me know!

One more post on this one, and then we can move on to some other cool other stuff!
Thanks for reading! Kane