Ex Tenebris

When I first heard about Free I was really excited. Another Pat Flynn band that basically is 4/5th Have Heart sounded pretty damn good to me. And the demo didn't disappoint. I actually managed to pick up a copy on tape at one of the Bane 20th anniversary shows. Pat Flynn was folding the inlays at the merch table when I bought it. Cool story, bro, I know. Anyway, when it was announced that Free was going to release a 7", I was really excited, again. I even set up several notifications and alarms so I wouldn't miss out on the pre-order. Guess what happened? Yup, I missed out on the rarest colour. And paying shipping from the US to Europe for the other variants didn't seem like the smart thing to do.
So I decided to wait and pick up a copy as soon as distros over here had them in stock. The ones I could find that had copies sold them for 8,50€ upwards. I couldn't bring myself to pay that much for a new 7", be it a band I really like or not. Especially if I could end up with a copy that might just be black. So I waited and waited and waited. No rare copies popped up on Discogs or eBay, so I decided to wait some more. Then Free announced a European tour and some sort of tour press, comprising the demo and the Ex Tenebris 7". I knew I wasn't going to make it to any of the shows, so I asked friends to pick up a copy if they had the chance. I should have guessed that those were going to sell out pretty fast, but from what I've heard those sold out super fast. Then Control Records announced they were going to sell the remaining copies of the sold out record (right?) online. And again I missed out. So after waiting for about a year and missing out on the same record twice within a few days, I said fuck it and bought a copy after finding one for an okayish price. This 7" is pretty damn good. Not as good as early Have Heart stuff, but then again, that comparison in itself is kind of stupid. Really looking forward to hearing more from this band.