Condominium - Warm Home LP

Finally got my hands on this highly anticipated LP from St. Paul hardcore scuzz slingers Condominium. It follows a string of rather impressive 7-inches that saw the band emerge from more straight forward hardcore/punk to the realm of weird and abrasive that has since ushered in numerous comparisons to one of their home states staples, Amphetamine Reptile. While the singles certainly had a penchant for the noisier outsider vibes of hardcore, I could still never fully connect the dots between the two. However, with the bands debut LP Warm Home it’s certainly a much more logical and appropriate link than ever before instead of just merely being a convenient one. With Warm Home the band is allowed some freedom to really out do themselves with the weirdo vibes here, setting aside a couple tracks of strange tortured strings and tuneless noise to greatly drive the point home with “Why Be Something You’re Not” and album closer “An Arbitrary Choice Between Infinite Coexisting Realities”.   However it’s the albums lead track “Life is Amazing” that is up there for me as one of the best tunes I’ve had the pleasure of hearing all year and is no doubt one of Condominium’s best moments thus far, combining a nearly perfect balance of hooks and bad attitude aggression. The only downer to be said about Warm Home is that it’s over far too soon with just seven tracks in 22 minutes. Here’s to hoping these guys have more in the pipeline ready to go soon, as Warm Home has certainly got me hooked.

Condominium – Life is Amazing [MP3]

For those that are looking to pick up Warm Home, it’s available through a number of distro’s currently. I believe Permanent and Grave Mistake still have some copies of this. Run of 752, go get it. Enjoy!