Leatherface / Hot Water Music - BYO Split Series Vol. 1 LP

LEATHERFACE (UK) Split with HOT WATER MUSIC (USA) (1999) - Black vinyl.  This split LP, recorded in three days in 1999, seems as miraculous as it is a god-send. Because they were one of those truly astonishing modern groups that spontaneously combusted in the midst of a creative peak, LEATHERFACE's unexpected 1993 bust-up seemed particularly cruel. Thousands of scattered souls openly mourned when the news came down that the Punk/Post-Punk powerhouse had vanished. Perhaps after listening to the sea of old live recordings and B-sides, LEATHERFACE's members realized what they'd thrown away, buried what hatchets needed burying, and pulled a Lazarus. The sound of this new recording recalls the spark, the lift-off, and the balls-out clear smack of "Mush" and "The Last." Though Frankie Norman Warsaw Stubbs' vocals are mixed just a little too low to totally match those older detonations -- you have to go down into the two guitars a little to find him, making the words harder to get -- it's still such a corker, it completely corrects the muddy mixes on Stubbs' Jesse and Pope albums. This unexpected recording is a reality is that rarest of things: a long-shot wish fulfilled.