Top Drawer (2024, Reissue)
In the 90s, Sicko was part of my holy trinity of pop punk bands. The Mr. T Experience, Zoinks and Sicko were always the ones that I was constantly obsessing over. I spent so much time in a pre-Discogs world hunting down records by them. The fact that so many are now available with the simple click of a mouse is as exciting as it is unfair.
30 years after their first full length was released, Sicko is reissuing all of their albums on vinyl and CD. These boys have put out some really important records to me and over the next four Fridays (fingers crossed that I can stay on schedule) I'm going to be writing about each of them. Maybe not on Black Friday, but we'll see how that goes.
First up is the first Sicko full length. You Can Feel The Love In This Room was originally released in 1994 and I was completely unaware that it came out. My entry point to Sicko was their next album Laugh While You Can Monkey Boy, but we'll talk more about that next week. I had to backtrack and pick up You Can Feel The Love In This Room a year after the fact. I think for that reason I honestly never really bonded with it as strongly as the others, which always felt more 'current' to me. It's kind of absurd to say that about a record that came out 30 years ago vs. the next one that came out 29 years ago, but again, during the time it felt different to me than the other three.
That's certainly not to say I don't thoroughly enjoy this record and I've listed to it more times than I can count. Just not quite as many times as the others. It is jam packed full of hits and it's really hard to argue how great songs like "The Sprinkler" or "Wisdom Tooth Weekend" are. The times I've seen Sicko live, these songs sound just as great as the ones off of other albums that I have a bit more nostalgic feelings for.
Before I talk a little bit about this specific reissue, I do need to call out how absolutely, completely fucking insane it is that all four albums were rereleased AT THE SAME TIME. That is madness and while as a fan it's sure nice to get them all without having to wait, just thinking about the logistics of making that happen makes my head hurt.
You Can Feel The Love In This Room was remastered for this rerelease and you can tell the difference. I played the first few songs off of my original LP that came out on eMpTy before putting this new version on and it's a big improvement. First off, everything is a little bit louder and a little bit fuller sounding, but where this reissue really shines for me is how much better the vocals sound. They're a little more forward and it sounds great.
There are also two bonus tracks on here, "Pain in the Ass" from their first demo and "Kathy's Dance" from the Count Me Out 7". Where are the other songs from those releases? Who knows. Maybe we're going to get a fancy pants reissue of A Brief History... one day. Rather than have both songs at the end, "Pain In The Ass" is at the end of side A of the record, which is a little jarring as I'm not used to that song being their when I've listened to the record for the past 29 years.
This is the best that this record has ever sounded and even though I already had the original LP and CD, of course I needed to have both versions of the new vinyl. Here they are, in all of their glory. I may be in the minority (as I do understand that the splatter is probably more impressive looking), but I think the solid color is the winner here, it just looks the business to me.
Sicko - You Can Feel The Love In This Room:
https://sicko.bandcamp.com/music (I have been assured that the remastered versions are coming to Bandcamp imminently)
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