The Blood Brothers‘ classic 2003 album …Burn, Piano Island, Burn turns 20 this year, and to celebrate, it’s getting a deluxe reissue via Epitaph on October 6. It comes with both the original LP and the “Ambulance vs Ambulance” 7″ (b/w “Pink Tarantulas”), along with a 32-page booklet that includes a retrospective written by Zachary Lipez and a never-before-seen photos. We’ve got an exclusive half opaque yellow / half opaque pink vinyl variant up for pre-order now. It’s limited to just 500 copies, so get yours while they last. That’s a mock-up above.
Reflecting on the album now, co-vocalist Jordan Blilie says, “Listening to these songs twenty years later, I hear the sound of youth; of the world opening up. It’s unbridled, it’s overwhelming, and it’s relentless. None of it should’ve worked, and honestly, some of it doesn’t. But I’m proud of it for those exact reasons. That we stood there on the precipice, gazing into the unknown, and dove face first.”
Here’s what we said about the album in our list of 15 albums that defined the 2000s post-hardcore boom:
The most purely chaotic album on this list, …Burn, Piano Island, Burn is an album that’s constantly in motion, whipping by at full speed but with weird, fidgety timing that’s far from straightforward hardcore. Co-vocalists Jordan Blilie and Johnny Whitney’s voices are constantly bouncing off each other and flying in different directions. Sometimes they’re both screamed, sometimes one is low and gothy and the other is high-pitched and flamboyant like Cedric from At the Drive-In (and like Relationship of Command, …Burn, Piano Island, Burn was produced by Ross Robinson). As Henry Rollins once put it, “What a great fucking racket these guys make.” It’s true, and even in the brief moments when they aren’t making a fucking racket, …Burn, Piano Island, Burn proved The Blood Brothers could make quiet, pretty-sounding music too. The album was a huge leap from the rougher material that preceded it, but not nearly as polished or pop-oriented as what came after. Most of what they did is great in its own right, but …Burn, Piano Island, Burn was the perfect middle ground and one of the most unhinged post-hardcore albums of the era.
Read the full list here. Stream the LP below and pick up our variant in the BV shop.
Tracklist
LP Side A
Guitarmy
Fucking’s Greatest Hits
Burn, Piano Island, Burn
Every Breath is a Bomb
Ambulance vs Ambulance
USA Nails
Cecilia and the Silhouette Saloon
LP Side B
Six Nightmares at the Pinball Masquerade
The Salesman, Denver Max
I Know Where the Canaries and the Crows Go
God Bless You, Blood Thirsty Zeppelins
The Shame
7″ Side A
Ambulance vs Ambulance
7″ Side B
Pink Tarantulas
