It All Comes Down To ….

This. This record. This band. This. This means everything.

It All Comes Down To This is quite different from the 7"s before and everything Bane released afterwards. I once read an interview with Bedard in which he said that in hindsight the band is not really happy with this LP and that's why they  rarely play songs from the first LP anymore. I think it was something along the lines that they wanted to experiment a lot and push the songwriting further. Which they definitely did. Actually they managed to do it quite well in my opinion. But I can see the band's perspective here. I imagine some of the songs on It All Comes Down To This to transform not well into live songs. Except for What Makes Us Strong and Can We Start Again for obvious reasons.
On a personal level, I really, really like this LP. We're talking about Bane after all. However, it's not my favourite Bane release. I've never been able to bond with this record as much as with some of their other releases, but I still hold it dear.
On a general level, I think this record is outstanding. It was so much ahead of its time when it was released in 1999. It's been 15 years since this album was first released, but if you were to ask anyone who doesn't know this record or band (WHUT?),  they would have a hard time pinning it down. Could have been released in 2006 or last year. The phrase "modern hardcore" would probably not exist without Bane or this LP.

From the pictures I'd seen before I actually could hold this record in my hands I always thought that this record was solid pink. But actually it has some nice marble effect to it. There are some white and even some very faint yellow streaks visible here. Looks really good. Easily the best looking version of the lot.

So I'm finally done with this one. Minus the test that is. But chances are I'll never get that. Which I'm fine with actually. Any Bane test pressings, or at least the ones of the early releases, are extremely hard to come by. If I ever could get one of those, that would be the cherry on top of the whipped cream on top of the sundae. Vegan style of course.

Bane - It All Comes Down To This (from left to right)

Bane - It All Comes Down To This - Equal Vision - pink - /100 (record release)

Bane - It All Comes Down To This - Equal Vision - red - /150 (tour)

Bane - It All Comes Down To This - Equal Vision - orange - /300 

          [it really is orange, not almost yellow like in the picture]

Bane - It All Comes Down To This - Equal Vision - black - /???