Doubtless Record Store Day, as with any no; absolutely every institutionalised day of celebration, has its pros and cons. Its primary pro I would contend, what with black wax now rendered omnipresent, clamoured for and consequently a touch extortionate (another debate for another time further from Friday perhaps), stems from its capacity to re-inform and remind – or alternatively inform and educate – the glaringly obvious: that every vinyl is, as 88 Fingers Louie would put it, a "two-faced bastard". There's a wealth of possibility within the split 7" concept that's largely been neglected over the past little while although here to reinitiate the notion of an artist hogging a whole side is/ are Feistodon. Its constituents largely self-explanatory, this one's surely topping many a list for when the doors of independent record stores swing wide open come Saturday morning to engender a rabid pandemonium and, limited to just 700 pieces pressed by Roadrunner, these streams may tragically be as close as you're gonna get to it. First up is Canadian songbird Feist who gives the proggish onslaught of Black Tongue a vigorous swill, toughening up to rough it 'n' roll through startlingly rambunctious clatter.
Bearded Atlanta, Georgia barbarians Mastodon then give Leslie's A Commotion a melodramatic, almost pastiche rawk take on the flipside, brutally maiming the Metals track beyond recognition with sludgy bludgeon. As delightful as it is to hear Feist baring baby teeth and cracking the brittle little things on savage distortion, it's the crazed metal leviathans that outmuscle quite devastatingly on this one...
