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We’re men of our word. As we look to clear all of our outstanding commitments from our old Patreon model (info on the new one - the Unsung Record Club - can be found here), there was one album we were asked to do that we’d been putting off for a while - New History Warfare Vol. 2: Judges by Colin Stetson. Our top subscriber Cory Robinson asked us to do this a while back, but it took us ages to get around to it.

Why? Well, we actually tried to do it earlier on in the year. We listened to the record and thought that it would make a very interesting episode, but none of us could quite connect with it. A few episodes passed and we realised that we had to stop putting this one off and just go for it.

For a podcast that primarily deals in rock music, and the various subgenres of, we do our best to expand our palette where possible. We’ve covered jazz briefly in the past of course, but nothing quite as avant-garde as this. This album, and indeed most of Colin’s work, requires the listener to be in a certain mood. It’s a mood that doesn’t come easily when you’re unfamiliar with the genre, and it’s also something you can only really tackle if you’re feeling up to the task because this is complex, challenging stuff.

It’s also musically and technically impressive. Oh, and physically impressive too - the things this guy can do on his own with just a saxophone and a bunch of mics in one room are truly stunning.

So as you can imagine, it took us while to get into the mindset to tackle this album. On this episode, alongside chatting about Colin Stetson’s extensive discography - soundtrack work included - we talk about mood albums as a whole, and discuss why it can sometimes be difficult to get into a song/band/album if you’re just not in the mood for it. We also discuss how this affects the creation of this podcast as a whole. Yeah, that’s right, we get fucking introspective this week folks.

Is this an unsung classic? We certainly feel it is…

REMINDER: It’s almost Record Club shipping time! We’ll be posting out vinyl and emailing digital download codes to all of our subscribers next week so there’s still time to get involved before the end of April! You can also drop in and out if an ongoing subscription is too much for you. Find out more below.