Rowland S. Howard ‎– Pop Crimes

As of today, the download code is not working anymore.
Pressing is good and no surface noises.

This black vinyl reissue from Fat Possum is an extremely noisy pressing. Side two features many quieter moment that are ruined by excessive surface noise and pops. Sounds like a VG rated used copy. Shame to have such excellent music marred by inferior manufacturing.

A top pressing of an outstanding album. Three more words.

Great service by the groovesland people by whom I bought the CD! They delivered as promissed.

There has been another release of Pop Crimes on vinyl by Liberation. The first pressing came with the CD version sealed against the front cover. People who own this edition never needed to unseal the LP to 'check for a CD'. The second pressing had no CD. These two pressings are easy to distinguish from later Liberation re-press due to the use of the round Liberation symbol. When Liberation re-pressed Pop Crimes on red vinyl it appears the first 750 had the Obi strip and the remainder of the press number did not (or they re-pressed without Obi strip). These pressings of Pop Crimes use the rectangular Liberation logo. It appears there is a black vinyl pressing that has been available for some time now and it also makes use of the rectangular Liberation logo. All cat numbers and identifiers appear to be the same so it seems there is some confusion from sellers (or plain unscrupulous sellers) offering copies of Pop Crimes for sale against the incorrect release information. The most obvious way to tell the item is a re-pressing is the shape of the Liberation logo. I attempted to explain this to a seller after purchasing what I was led to believe was at least a sealed second pressing but he/she stubbornly rejected my explanation and continued to say cat numbers matched.

This Liberation digipack came signed in silver ink by Rowland S. Howard, as well as the vinyl version wich came with a cd and a poster.

Passing away in 2009, Rowland S. Howard, like Ian Curtis of Joy Division, has left us with a darkly unsettling body of work that will no doubt be poured over for years to come by fans of Birthday Party, Nick Cave, and The Boys Next Door, for hints at his demise, his tentative hold on his personal being, mysterious choice of covers, and the distillation of his lyrics, to etch out any hint as to who the man behind the man actually was.

Sounding dark and devious, as if he was perpetually pondering on a soapbox, ignored by all passerby's, guitar in hand, preaching of the final days, and the lack of human immortality ... in that who we are, and what we leave behind is a mere blurred vision of what we do and whom we effect.

Essentially, Pop Crimes is flawless at painting a perverse and askew image of pop culture in all of its subversive faded glory, complete with covers by both Talk Talk [“Life’s What You Make It”] and Townes Van Zandt [“Nothin”]. He tenders nether of these songs as one might expect, but then Howard seldom did anything by the numbers, leaving us to cypher the reasoning behind these choices. Listening to Pop Crimes is no easy task, it’s painful, it’s heartbreaking, it’s tar on your new shoes from summer heated city streets and the lack of breathable air, laboriously rolling on and on, like a man searching his pockets over and over, knowing he’ll never have the correct change for the subway to take him someplace more bearable.

If nothing else, Rowland S. Howard has managed to show us a presence, and in the world of rock n’ roll, that’s saying something.

Review by Jenell Kesler