I've been trying (and failing) to get my hands on an original CD copy of True Love Always for years now, so I was psyched to learn that—with the help of Glacial Records—Drowning Room just released a remastered reissue of the disc in honor of its 20th anniversary. Their lone nine-song full-length, True Love Always is probably the band's strongest outing thus far, and remains one of the more underrated albums of that '90s era. Its dark, emotional metalcore still strikes me as something that should highly appeal to fans of Bloodlet and Starkweather through its constant contrasts of aggression and melody (musically as well as vocally), with quality musicianship that demonstrates plenty of rhythmic twists and turns. "Sunday's Best" is just one of my personal favorites.
But if I could die and trade a tear from my eyes
My warped mind would finally be at ease...
My only minor gripe with the reissue is that the disc appears to be a professionally replicated CD-R as opposed to a true CD. I've run into this more and more lately—despite the fact that legit CDs are pretty damn cheap to produce these days—and it's not that big of a deal, but the OCD in me always wonders how well these CD-Rs will hold up over time? Regardless, it does look great: well-packaged in a full-color gatefold sleeve that contains all of the lyrics, etc.; and the $8 price tag is certainly reasonable. So, stream this unsung gem over at Bandcamp, and pick up a copy straight from the band.
This probably means that my dream of a proper Drowning Room early-discography CD is never going to happen now, but fuck it... I'll take what I can get, and appreciate the band getting this music back out there!
P.S. Drowning Room has also dropped a couple of demos from their forthcoming new EP, Monument, slated for release later this year. It's shaping up to be even better than last year's Catharsis EP, so I'm quite looking forward to that as well!
