This Is My Truth 2018 Boxset and tour(?)

[hummingbird]

Originally Posted by sculptureofabloke

Had to pick mine up from post office this morning.

What sick bastard still thinks it’s acceptable to put promotional stickers on cellophane rather than the sleeve?

I peeled it off and stuck it on the inside cover (CD) doesn't spoil all the blue that way.

Could people stop posting their signed copies on twitter please ? I didn't get one and I feel sad
The fates won't allow me to throw a tantrum though cos I did get my shepherds bush ticket with the pre-sale link

[Porco]

Originally Posted by sculptureofabloke

Had to pick mine up from post office this morning.

What sick bastard still thinks it’s acceptable to put promotional stickers on cellophane rather than the sleeve?

Totally disagree - personally I hate it when the stickers are on the actual covers/sleeves, that was the sick thing IMHO! Putting them on the plastic wrap gives you the option to keep it or chuck it. You can even usually peel them off the plastic so you still have the choice to ruin your sleeve if you want to.

Look at the state of those TIMTTMY singles, the stickers on them often went all weird and look awful now.

I usually cut them out still on the plasic put or peel them off and stick them on a small bit of paper and keep them inside the record sleeve/CD case.

[Porco]

I’m pretty happy with this release overall. There’s some really great stuff in the demos, the remaster sounds really good and I love the artwork (the CD book is especially lovely IMHO).

I am still not on board with putting Prologue To History in Nobody Loved You’s place, I tried mocking it up before this was out and I tried it last night with the remaster but for me I still far prefer NLY where it was, and I suspect I will be swapping them back for future listens.

I’m sure they could have included more stuff but I am also quite sure there will be future box sets that could contain some of that.

As one of my favourite tracks I was very keen to finally hear this studio demo of Tsunami especially. It’s actually better than I expected. Whilst it isn’t going to ever challenge the album version proper for me, it’s a nice thing to have - a kind of angrier more violent twin sister version of the song to the lusher one we already had.

As with lots of these demos it’s always interesting hearing slightly different lyrics and places where the vocal melodies or timings etc are not quite as finished or different in some other way. I don’t recall any where I think they should have stuck with the earlier versions, but it’s cool to hear nevertheless.

[sitdown1985]

What's the deal with Nobody Loved you being missing? It's one of the best tracks on the album in my view. I love the lyrical U-turn in the last verse that complexity changes the meaning of the title by simply adding the words "like me" to the end. Beautiful.

Sorry if this has already been explained. The search on here isn't great ("loved" and "you" get excluded as they're common words, apparently!)

On the plus side, loving the cut back but slightly faster "Everlasting" - stunning.

[Europa Gluten Free]

What’s interesting for me now is thinking what they’ll do with the arrangements with the songs in the gigs. Apart from the fact they haven’t played Be Natural or I’m not Working live before (I think), and SYMM only once (maybe that is a false memory - EDIT: according to set list.fm, they played it 4 times), I’m interested to see how they perform them. The extra guitars in the Be Natural and SYMM demos completely change them. I hope they move away from the over produced album versions.

[Marat Sar]

So they SAID on the offical site tracklist that NLY will be on disc two (demo and another version, assuming it's original) -- and it's not. There's only one version -- the demo. What a dick move.

Love these guys and am thankful for the hundreds of great tracks, of course, but wow. Okay. Imma swallow the dick them.

Remaster sounds nice though. New cover looks good too.

EDIT: feel like a whiny bitch now, so another positive point: remastered b-sides sound amazing. Montana / Autumn / 78 rocks soooo hard.

[theplague]

Originally Posted by Marat Sar

So they SAID on the offical site tracklist that NLY will be on disc two (demo and another version, assuming it's original) -- and it's not. There's only one version -- the demo. What a dick move.

Love these guys and am thankful for the hundreds of great tracks, of course, but wow. Okay. Imma swallow the dick them.

Remaster sounds nice though. New cover looks good too.

EDIT: feel like a whiny bitch now, so another positive point: remastered b-sides sound amazing. Montana / Autumn / 78 rocks soooo hard.

Erm, Nobody Loved You is present on Spotify and Apple Music.
Wasn’t it mentioned as a “hidden track? On disc 1?

It’s not there on yours?

[Porco]

Originally Posted by Marat Sar

So they SAID on the offical site tracklist that NLY will be on disc two (demo and another version, assuming it's original) -- and it's not. There's only one version -- the demo. What a dick move.

Love these guys and am thankful for the hundreds of great tracks, of course, but wow. Okay. Imma swallow the dick them.

Remaster sounds nice though. New cover looks good too.

EDIT: feel like a whiny bitch now, so another positive point: remastered b-sides sound amazing. Montana / Autumn / 78 rocks soooo hard.

Yeah, check CD 1, NLY is on after SYMM, there's just no track marker.

[roi]

Originally Posted by Porco

Yeah, check CD 1, NLY is on after SYMM, there's just no track marker.

They’ve said they’ll play the album in full when they tour but with all the confusion over the final tracks I wonder if they’ll play Nobody Loved You after SYMM, or drop it? Possibly they won’t play the album in sequence.

Enjoying the demos a lot, though, Thought Tsunami was great. Interesting to hear some of the phrasing of the vocals in You Stole the Sun is more staccato and old-school Manics than in the final version, particularly the ending.

[Dancing Kirby]

Prologue to History works better than I expected.

Besides, I always thought Black Dog’s outro would have been the best way to end the album. NLY and SYMM always felt like those Japanese bonus tracks tagged on to me.

Still an unnecessary alteration but it doesn’t stick out like Welcome to the Dead Zone did.

[Marat Sar]

Hahahah, yeah -- NLY is now after end gap. Whooh. Okay, I offically love the re-release! Now to work making it into an actual track again.

Also, Prologue somewhat works as album track because the re-master is absolutely amazing. The way the guitar chords move in the left-right extremes of the mix is great. Doesn't sound any worse than the album. None of the b-sides do, actually, but this one's especially nice.

[Europa Gluten Free]

I advise everyone to turn up the bass and listen to the Tsunami demo. Love it.

Tsunami, tsunami came washing over me.....
Tsunami, tsunami came washing over me.....
Tsunami, tsunami came washing over MAAAAAAY.....
Tsunami, tsunami came washing over me.....

[darkanddivine]

A really interesting listen. Haven’t yet had chance to do the re-master on headphones but that will happen soon.

The first thing to say here is that you can hear that this is very much the band that made EMG. The demos of YSTS and Be Natural sound like EMG versions of those songs. The Everlasting is more of a mid-paced driving song than a ballad, and while Tsunami isn’t exactly Sepultura heavy, it does have a slight snarl that the final version doesn’t.

That does reveal (at least partly) the decision that the band then had to make on the direction of the album. They could have included the rockier, faster songs like Prologue, Montana (which is as glorious and underrated as it ever was here.) But, we know that the band did take a fair bit of direction from the production on the first 5 albums, but it’s particularly pronounced TIMT.

Of all the demos here that stand out, I think it’s My Little Empire. If they’d have put the cellos on but left it mostly acoustic, that could have been their All Apologies. You can also see why the final chorus/outro was added to Tolerate. It almost seems like the “aaaahs” were intended as backing vocals to lift the final chorus, but it does end far too abruptly in that format. To pull a seemingly innocuous backing vocal out to become a key part of a song’s chorus/outro was pretty ballsy.

To be fair, hearing the demos has given me a new appreciation of the album (although I always liked it anyway.) While a more upbeat, rocky album might have been an easier option, it would have veered awkwardly close to EMG 2 without that push to a sparser production and slowing some of the songs down. The decision to strip it back led to the experimentation in sound and playing style that we’d not heard from the band until that point.

Well worth a listen. Looking forward to the film too; would love to see some live footage from this era.

[Europa Gluten Free]

Originally Posted by darkanddivine

A really interesting listen. Haven’t yet had chance to do the re-master on headphones but that will happen soon.

The first thing to say here is that you can hear that this is very much the band that made EMG. The demos of YSTS and Be Natural sound like EMG versions of those songs. The Everlasting is more of a mid-paced driving song than a ballad, and while Tsunami isn’t exactly Sepultura heavy, it does have a slight snarl that the final version doesn’t.

That does reveal (at least partly) the decision that the band then had to make on the direction of the album. They could have included the rockier, faster songs like Prologue, Montana (which is as glorious and underrated as it ever was here.) But, we know that the band did take a fair bit of direction from the production on the first 5 albums, but it’s particularly pronounced TIMT.

Of all the demos here that stand out, I think it’s My Little Empire. If they’d have put the cellos on but left it mostly acoustic, that could have been their All Apologies. You can also see why the final chorus/outro was added to Tolerate. It almost seems like the “aaaahs” were intended as backing vocals to lift the final chorus, but it does end far too abruptly in that format. To pull a seemingly innocuous backing vocal out to become a key part of a song’s chorus/outro was pretty ballsy.

To be fair, hearing the demos has given me a new appreciation of the album (although I always liked it anyway.) While a more upbeat, rocky album might have been an easier option, it would have veered awkwardly close to EMG 2 without that push to a sparser production and slowing some of the songs down. The decision to strip it back led to the experimentation in sound and playing style that we’d not heard from the band until that point.

Well worth a listen. Looking forward to the film too; would love to see some live footage from this era.

Totally agree with all these points.

I think it makes it very interesting to see how they interpret the album tracks now in the upcoming gigs. More EMG style Be Natural or SYMM would be fantastic.

[tomd2103]

Originally Posted by Dancing Kirby

Prologue to History works better than I expected.

Besides, I always thought Black Dog’s outro would have been the best way to end the album. NLY and SYMM always felt like those Japanese bonus tracks tagged on to me.

Still an unnecessary alteration but it doesn’t stick out like Welcome to the Dead Zone did.

I've always thought Nobody Loved You should have been the album closer. Although the sentiment of SYMM is one that I support, I've never really been bothered about the song.