Discount

When we left Discount, they were trapped in a deadly scheme by Egghead, vowing to get the band and the boy wonder.

So then the reviewer got tired of his own uninspired segueway and started the review to shut himself up cause he needs to review more talk less.

As I said in the review for volume one, this is the 2nd and final CD of b-sides and singles from the band Discount who put out not one but two b-sides CD's.

As with volume one, even though I'm a discount fan, I still had only previously heard one song ("portrait of a cigarette") on this collection. And on top of the 16 songs on volume one, this one clocks in with 15 songs. A few of them are demo versions of songs off their last album, but primarily all b-side juiciness.

The cover of this record has Alison over a microphone, and the Discount name scrawled at the top, with more photos and more listings of recordings. This band wrote so much material, and all of it good. I had no idea they released so much on the side.

I loved volume one, and Volume Two is a requirement if you buy Volume one. It is just as good. All the songs are strong, and fit in with one another. Some of the songs are a different pace for Discount, and they pull it off well like "Fixing Rubble Building Us" which has a minimal of their normal density, but just as much of a punch, and Alison's lyrics never sounded so good. Bill's drumming concise and urgent as always. Songs that stick in your head for days. The middle of the album really takes off with songs deserving to be released.

If you've never heard Discount before (you poor soul), its harder than normal to try and describe their sound. They were poppy, yet on their last record they played with tempos and song structures, a much more manic experiment. Never afraid to write how they felt, it pushed boundaries while always being under the Discount banner. To put them in a context, they were in the area of Florida that Hot water Music and friends (less than jake, against all authority) are from. As you can see, its hard to pin down a sound amongst such a large spectrum of different sounding bands. They put out splits with a wide variety of completely opposing bands from As Friends Rust to J Church and put out an EP of Billy Brag covers. I've heard them called jawbreakeresque, emo, pure pop punk, punk rock, plain rock, and on.

These two records are an amazing send off for a band that broke up. Their b-sides records are better than most regular records by 90 percent of other bands. If you own any of their records, its unfair to call these bsides records knowing what baggage that has. These are just two great records of material, as if they were two new records. This is the best money Ive spent in months. One more Discount related review to go with Alison's new band the Kills.