Remember Thin White Rope? I do, though admittedly they flew below my radar for most of their career.The band didn’t really receive the recognition they deserved and I’m as guilty of that as anyone. My first exposure to them was on a split 7″ single they did with Poster Children in the early 1990’s. It was quite good but for some reason, likely budget reasons, I never followed through and picked up their other records. I always meant to pick up other records by them but never did, and then they went out of print, at least on vinyl anyway. And decades went by and they were still out of print.
Well a couple of them are out of print no more! We’ll start with the first of the two albums that after about three decades of being unavailable, has been given a sweet colored vinyl reissue. Exploring The Axis was Thin White Rope’s first album. It came out way back in 1985 on Frontier Records, one of the best American independent labels in history. Frontier went back to the archives and resurrected this for the current record buying public and they did a fantastic job.
The sound of Thin White Rope is pretty hard to pin down in just a few words. They didn’t really fit into any one category at the time, and they still don’t. They have elements of punk, indie rock, post-punk, rock, sometimes even a hint of country twang. They can be up-tempo at times, slow at others. They are very interesting and diverse and were pretty ahead of their time.
This reissue of Exploring The Axis comes on two different colors of vinyl. First there is a white vinyl edition, limited to 150, that is a mail-order exclusive from Frontier Records. For those of you who like to buy your records at the record store (as well you should!), there is an opaque red vinyl edition of 350 you can buy at your local store (provided they have good taste in their stock). The record comes in a color, standard jacket, the vinyl is a beefy 180gm and sounds excellent. There is also a two-sided lyric sheet and a download card enclosed too, making this an excellent value.
If you haven’t checked out Thin White Rope before, of if you are like me and knew about them but sadly didn’t keep up with their output back when they were active, now is your chance to check them out, get a really cool looking album with the download for your devices and make up for lost time! If you want one shipped directly to your front door, visit the Frontier Records website and they’ll hook you up for a very fair price.
