Dillinger Four - This Shit Is Geniuser LP - Green Vinyl (and Bonus Flexi)

 
Anxious & Angry (2025)

Anxious & Angry has reissued the Dillinger Four singles compilation, dubbing this new version This Shit Is Geniuser.  It takes the existing This Shit Is Genius comp that THD and No Idea put out a few decades ago and spruces it up with a few new tracks.  It is nice to have a new version of this, though I wish they had taken it a step further.  More on that later.  Also included was a flexi of one of the new songs that was added to the album.

As weird as it sounds, this is my favorite Dillinger Four record, even though it's not a proper full length.  The main backbone of it has always been The Kids Are All Dead 7", Higher Aspirations: Tempered and Dismantled 7" and the split 7" with The Strike.  These are the songs that first made me fall in love with Dillinger Four.  I vividly remember when my buddy Alan played me The Kids Are All Dead at Flipside records and in that second, I became a D4 fan for life.  

Particularly because of my favorite song of theirs, "Two Cents."  I can't even describe that song in anyway to do it justice.  An incredible song with a driving, attacking verse that somehow transitions into a the catchiest, bounciest, angriest chorus you've ever heard.  It's ridiculous.  And it's one of many unbelievable songs.  All of those 7" tracks are borderline perfect.  The compilation song "Holy Shit" often gets my vote for the song I wish was three times as long as it actually is.  I love these songs.

This new version has all of those songs and adds in the four from the Mutant Pop 7" and "Like Spreewells On Wheelchairs" from the Rock Against Bush compilation (which is also the song on the bonus flexi).  All welcome additions, but by my count there's at least nine more D4 tracks floating around out there from various compilations and what not.  The two tracks from the Pinhead Gunpowder split 7" being the ones that seem the most obvious.  If it's me, maybe this needs to be a double LP?  Or you do a straight reissue of the original version and then do a volume 2?  Lots of options, but the point I'm making is that my main complaint is that I want more and more and more Dillinger Four in my life.  Give me more of these old song.  And give me new songs, we sure could use them in 2026.

Dillinger Four - This Shit Is Geniuser:

https://dillingerfour.bandcamp.com/album/this-shit-is-geniuser

Spells - Loose Change, Vol. 1 LP - Red Vinyl

Snappy Little Numbers / Anxious & Angry (2018)

I've let this LP linger in the to-do pile a little longer than I probably should have.  It certainly wan't because I wasn't excited about the record, I've been writing about Spells for a few years and I have never had anything but wonderful things to say about them.  That trend continues with this record, though I already knew I liked a handful of these songs going in.

Loose Change, Vol. 1 is a singles compilation from Spells, but only two songs are from an actual Spells 7".  Aside from "Take Time" and "Slice Away" everything else on this album was either from a compilation, a digital only release or relegated to cassette hell.  If you're keeping track at home, that's fourteen songs making their way to vinyl for the first time.  And thank goodness for that, these songs are way too good to just disappear into the ether or be eaten by someone's shitty Sony walkman from 1989.

I've always made Rocket From The Crypt comparisons when writing about Spells.  It's not because I think they sound similar, it's always been more about the attitude and energy that the band is able to harness on their records.  They just have a way of writing songs that capture a certain sort of party vibe, without being overtly silly.  It also doesn't hurt that the songs are super catchy, so that's a big part of the reason I've always liked them so much.

This is a really good starting point if you want to check out Spells.  It's mostly early material from the band, but since so little of it had a proper release before It's not going to end up getting replaced if you decide to go all in and track down their entire discography.  Hell of a band, hell of a record.

Spells - Loose Change, Vol. 1
https://snappylittlenumbers.bandcamp.com/album/loose-change-vol-1