Respire: Black Line (white with gold & silver splatter vinyl) [DINE ALONE]

Why you'll love it

This pressing puts Black Line on white vinyl with gold and silver splatter. Exclaim! gave the album 8 out of 10, and Paul Mack's production lets the violin, trumpets and saxophone sit right alongside the tremolo riffs.

This edition

• White vinyl with gold and silver splatter
• Single LP, nine tracks
• Mastered by Jack Shirley

About the album

Respire is less a band than a collective: six core members from Toronto, plus trumpets, saxophone and guest voices, all folded into a sound that borrows from black metal, screamo and post-rock without belonging to any of them. Black Line arrived in December 2020, produced and mixed by Paul Mack and mastered by Jack Shirley.

The album moves like a storm front; "Blight" and "Tempest" crash in, "Cicatrice" opens up into something almost hymnal, and "To Our Dead Friends" carries the emotional weight the title promises. Egin Kongoli's lyrics insist that people are defined by the beauty in their hearts rather than the ugliness around them.

Respire are at their best when they are at their most sonically vulnerable.
Mark Tremblay, Exclaim!

Also at Kops: Counterparts: You're Not You Anymore · Alexisonfire: Otherness · Sparta: Porcelain · the Dine Alone x Kops takeover · more punk

Tracklist

Listen

On Dine Alone Records (cat# DAV302), a reissue of the 2020 album.