Off With Their Heads/Morning Glory

Always Alone Split [7-inch] (2013)

Ricky Frankel

When I saw that Off With Their Heads, Morning Glory, and Direct Hit! were going on tour together last December, that to me, was one of the best lineups I had seen for a tour in a long time. The fact that Off With Their Heads and Morning Glory announced that they would be selling the Always Alone E.P. 7-inch (during the tour only) was even better, but this tour was on the East Coast only. Thankfully Fat Wreck Chords recently announced that they are selling the vinyl copies of it online, too, which is awesome because it's an impressive E.P.

The first song on this E.P. is an acoustic version of "Always Alone," which is originally on Off With Their Heads's latest full-length Home. This song gets really great about halfway through because suddenly you hear guitar feedback, which builds up some tension, then a distorted electric guitar finally joins in. It's a different take on an already really good song. You can see the two bands play it together live in New York here:

The next song on the Always Alone E.P. is a cover of "Care of Me" from Morning Glory's album Poets Were My Heroes by Off With Their Heads. This is a really interesting choice of all of the songs on that album to cover because its mostly highly distorted electric guitars replacing what was originally soft piano playing and some acoustic guitar. Off With Their Heads could have chosen to easily rock "Divide By" or "Everything's a Song (To Me)," but they didn't, which is perfectly fine because they did a great job with "Care of Me." Don't be skeptical of this cover. It does not disappoint by any means.

The third and final song on this 7-inch is very exciting to say the least. It's called "Nationality Anthem" and it will be on Morning Glory's upcoming album War Psalms. It's aggressive, mean sounding, and in your face! If the Pet Monster single didn't get you excited for Morning Glory's next full-length then this definitely will. "Nationality Anthem" is an awesome song because it's a heavily reliant on guitar harmonics in the introduction. They add such a killer tone right from the get-go as well as the other heavy guitar riffs through out the song. It's very reminiscent of early Morning Glory, which is fantastic to hear. The politically charged and socially conscious lyrics are very well written, most notably this verse: Countries I have been, events that I have seen/Convince me we're all mortal and we all feel pain/No matter how differ in custom or in aim/There's always a fucking border cop who wants to know your name.

Definitely check out this E.P. if you haven't already.

Note to my fellow vinyl nerds: This 7-inch was pressed in three different colors 400 in red, 400 in green, and 200 in black.