Wax Packs: The Hundred Acre Woods / Boxer - Split 7"

The Hundred Acre Woods / Boxer - Split 7", a photo by Tim PopKid on Flickr.

Secret Audio Club (2013)

This is the 5th and final 7" from my Wax Packs hobby box. Full review of the box itself was posted on Monday at: www.ibuywaytoomanyrecords.com/2014/01/wax-packs-casual-cr...

2 more bands that I was completely unfamiliar with. The first band on this split is The Hundred Acre Woods. Right off the bat, I think they've picked a pretty great band name, so I'm hopeful that they sound good too. They're probably the best surprise from this batch of records along with John Moreland. The Hundred Acre Woods plays upbeat, banjo tinged, light & catchy folk-punk. Not in an Against Me/Gainesville arnarcho way, but in a laid back, build up that chorus and tap your foot way. The singsong vocals mix with the slightly twangy, but still crunchy guitar to create a song that's definitely one of the best I've heard from this series.

Boxer doesn't blow me away quite the same way that The Hundred Acre Woods does. They're a little more by the numbers agnsty rock. They kind of feel like one of those old Jade Tree bands that I know a lot of people liked, but never really stood out from the back for me. The band plays at a slower, more melodic speed, but counters that melody with some crazy electric guitar noise swirling in the background. I could actually see this being something that others would gravitate to, but it's not really my speed.

That wraps up my Secret Audio Club Wax Packs reviews. 5 records out of 1 hobby box. There's 5 more split 7"s out there, which I would definitely be curious to get my hands on. The question is now, is taking a chance on 9 more bands I've never heard of worth the risk? Maybe, I was pleasantly surprised by some of the bands from this batch. We'll just have to see.

The Hundred Acre Woods:
thehundredacrewoods.bandcamp.com/album/pipebomb-wax-packs

Boxer:
boxerrva.bandcamp.com/album/secret-audio-club-wax-packs

Wax Packs: Marathon / Fire When Ready - Split 7" - Test Pressing (/20)

Wax Packs: Marathon / Fire When Ready - Split 7" - Test Pressing (/20), a photo by Tim PopKid on Flickr.

Secret Audio Club (20113)

This is 7" number 4 from my Wax Packs hobby box. For a recap on the box as a whole and the story behing the set, please read Monday's review at www.ibuywaytoomanyrecords.com/2014/01/wax-packs-casual-cr.... This split was the 2nd "hit" variation I pulled from my mystery box. I think in trading card lingo, the used to call this a chase card. This particular variant is a limited to 20 copies test pressing for the record. I'm not really one who collects test pressings, so there may be others who would consider this a bigger coup.

As for the 2 bands on the split, again I'd never heard of either prior to putting this on the turntable. I do have to say of all of the bands I've heard from the Wax Packs set, these were the bands I was least impressed with. Marathon's 1st song was a good, upbeat rocker. Big chugging guitar with a catchy chorus, but the vocals didn't hold up to the music. The 2nd songs was an acoustic number with more vocals that just don't work for me.

Fire When Ready is playing a minor chord driven, wacky guitar noodling, late 90s off-beat-drum-signature style that kind of reminds me of some of the Polyvinyl bands from the late 90's era. Again, it's the vocals that I'm just not into with these guys. There's also a bunch of shouting at the end of the 1st song that feels like it comes out of no where. Their 2nd entry is faster and more upbeat, so I like it more than the 1st, but it's still not the sort of band I could see myself listening to very much.

As I said in my first review of the series, there's 19 bands contributing songs to this project. The odds of everyone liking every band seem pretty slim to me. This is just the record that I didn't like of the bunch. I could only find 30 second clips of some of these songs, I couldn't find the whole songs streaming anywhere.

Marathon:
soundcloud.com/plugola/closing-time-at-the-distortion

Fire When Ready:
soundcloud.com/plugola/the-whole-long-while-demo

Wax Packs: Broken Field Runner / Gifthorse - Split 7"

Wax Packs: Broken Field Runner / Gifthorse - Split 7", a photo by Tim PopKid on Flickr.

Secret Audio Club (2013)

This was 7" number 3 from my Wax Packs box set. You can read a synopsis of the entire set here: www.ibuywaytoomanyrecords.com/2014/01/wax-packs-casual-cr...

Once again, we had two bands that I had not only never heard before, but I had never even heard of prior to this set being announced. Perhaps I'm getting older and falling out of touch with music a bit more than I'm willing to admit. Broken Field Runner chime in with a dynamic, but mid tempo number. Light guitars mesh with cymbal heavy drumming and strong vocals to produce a sound that reminds me a bit of the old 90's band Tugboat Annie. Maybe Broken Field Runner doesn't achieve highs quite as high, but it's a pretty good song.

Gifthorse runs in the acoustic world, but in an early Against Me or Frank Turner sort of way. Both songs on their side of the record are alright, but there's a totally unnecessary lead guitar that weaves through the first song that I find distracting. I think the song is strong enough to stand on its own without the extra noodling.

Broken Field Runner:
brokenfieldrunner.bandcamp.com/track/im-in-a-bad-way

Gifthorse:
gifthorsede.bandcamp.com/album/wax-packs-split-with-broke...

Wax Packs: John Moreland / Austin Lucas - Split 7"

Secret Audio Club (2013)

This is the 2nd 7" from my Wax Packs box set.  For a full description of the series and the trading card-esque way they are rolling out this record, I described it in detail in Monday's review: http://www.ibuywaytoomanyrecords.com/2014/01/wax-packs-casual-crybaby-split-7-violet.html

This split 7" holds the distinction of being the only one in the group with an artist I had actually heard of before, Austin Lucas.  I knew he was part of the growing folky acoustic punk "revival tour" crew, but I can't say I had listened to much of his output.  His song, "Splinters" has more of a country twang than I would have originally thought.  There's certainly no reinvention of the wheel going on, but it's a strong song that I did enjoy.

However for me, John Moreland stole the show on this record, he may have stolen the show on the entire series (though there is another band in the running for that; we'll get to them later in the week.).  Moreland's track "Cataclysm Blues No. 4" is just great.  Like a lost song from Bruce Springsteen's Devils And Dust album (My favorite Springsteen release for those keeping track at home), this gruff vocaled, slow, somber number is just an incredibly well written song.

I was very excited to pull this 7" from my Wax Packs box as it was the one I was most interested in hearing,  As I said yesterday, this is a novel concept and certainly leads to more excitement opening your record when you don't already know what's inside.

John Moreland - Cataclysm Blues No 4:
http://secretaudioclub.bandcamp.com/track/cataclysm-blues-no-4

Austin Lucas - Splinters (Live At New West Records):
https://soundcloud.com/plugola/splinters-live-at-new-west

Wax Packs: Casual / Crybaby - Split 7" - Violet Vinyl (/154)

Wax Packs: Casual / Crybaby - Split 7" - Violet Vinyl (/154), a photo by Tim PopKid on Flickr.

Secret Audio Club (2013)

Wax Packs Hobby Box

Wax Packs is one of the more unique things I've come across record collecting.  They're put out by a label attempting to combine their love of record collecting with their love of trading cards.  It's an interesting singles series concept, but instead of getting 1 record every month, all of the singles are released at the same time, the only catch is that you don't know what records you're going to get.  The basic concept of Wax Packs is that they are selling 7"s in generic sleeves that are sealed.  If you go to the store or buy a single record, it's a lot like the vinyl toy blind box phenomenon that's been taking off over the past few years.  Until you buy your record and take it home to open it, the record your buying is a mystery.

The way it becomes a bit more like trading cards is the records are also sold in groups on 5 singles, as a Hobby Box.  The benefit of the Hobby Box is that in addition to having multiple chances to get the record you want, you are guaranteed to get one of the more rare variants of the records.  Let me explain.  For each of the 10 7" releases, there's different variants hidden randomly in these hobby boxes. There's a limited to 150-ish version on colored vinyl, a limited to 50 numbered colored vinyl version and the test pressing for each record is also out there.  So if you buy a box of 5, you get a pretty cool box and a sure shot limited variant. There's also  collectible download trading cards, one for each band randomly distributed in each box.

Box Break

It's one of the cooler ideas for record collecting I've seen and while I don't collect trading cards now, I did as a kid.  I had an awful lot of Star Wars cards if nothing else.  I think if your goal is going to be to collect every variant of every record, you might drive yourself to drinking.  But if you buy a couple of boxes and then try to trade for the other records you're missing, it's kind of fun and opens you up to a collecting community of like minded souls.

That's a lot of describing the concept of this series, but with no talk of the actual music.  As I have 1 Hobby Box, it would be an extremely long review to try to tackle everything in this box.  What I'm going to do is review 1 of the 5 records each day this week, that way I can treat each 7" as its own release and can give the bands on the records a bit more time.  I will also say this.  Of the 19 bands in this series, I had only ever heard of 1 of them going in.  I had no clue what to expect.  Some of the records I liked, some of the records I didn't.  It's the same as every singles series, if you line up 19 bands, no one is going to like all of them, but there's enough interesting diversity in this group that I'm definitely glad I have a box of these.

Casual / Crybaby - Split 7"

On to the record at hand, the Casual / Crybaby split 7".  When I did my "box break" I actually had a heck of a box.  I got 4 records on regular black vinyl.  I also got a test pressing and then this split 7" on colored vinyl, limited to 154 copies.  I had never heard of either band before, so I went into this record blind.

Crybaby turned out to be alright.  They remind me a great deal of the Conor Oberst fronted Desaparecidos.  Pretty decent hooks and quivering vocals.  There's some wacky guitar breakdowns that didn't thrill me and I think the band as a whole could use a bit more oomph, but in general, these songs with ok.

Casual was more my speed.  Though they stray close to being a bit too straight forward rock, they string together 2 good songs with strong vocal melodies.  This sounds similar to some early 2000's bands to me. The first song is poppier, the 2nd has significantly more shouting with a big group singalong chorus.  I prefer them to Crybaby, but for bands I had never heard before, I think both are worth a listen.

I'll be back tomorrow with the next 7" that was in my Hobby Box.

Casual Side:

http://casualnj.bandcamp.com/album/split-7-w-crybaby


Crybaby Side:
http://crybabypa.bandcamp.com/album/split-7-w-casual-2