Texas Is The Reason: Do You Know Who You Are? TX30 Vinyl

Why you'll love it

This TX30 special edition was recut with direct-to-metal mastering and comes on red vinyl in a gatefold jacket, with a TX30 obi strip and an 8-page booklet of unseen photos, flyers and archive material. It remains one of the best-selling albums Revelation Records has ever put out.

This edition

TX30 special edition
Red vinyl
Recut with direct-to-metal mastering
Gatefold jacket
TX30 obi strip
8-page booklet

About the album

New York hardcore was not short of shouting in the mid-1990s, so Texas Is The Reason tried something braver and wrote tunes. Garrett Klahn, Norman Brannon, Scott Winegard and Chris Daly came out of that scene with big melodies, ringing guitars and a lot of feeling, and in December 1995 they went to Oz Studio in Baltimore to record with J. Robbins, with Vlado Meller mastering.

"Johnny On The Spot" opens at full tilt, "Nickel Wound" and "The Magic Bullet Theory" pile chiming guitar on guitar, and "There's No Way I Can Talk Myself Out Of This One Tonight (The Drinking Song)" earns its long title with a slow-building swell. The title track and "A Jack With One Eye" close things out with the heart-on-sleeve sound that a generation of emo bands went on to borrow.

Thirty years on, it is the record people mean when they talk about 1990s emo done right, and the TX30 series gives it the archive treatment it deserves. The obi strip is a nice touch; we've been asked to point out it is not a bookmark.

Also at Kops: more Texas Is The Reason on vinyl · browse Alternative

Tracklist

Side A
1. Johnny On The Spot
2. The Magic Bullet Theory
3. Nickel Wound
4. There's No Way I Can Talk Myself Out Of This One Tonight (The Drinking Song)
5. Something To Forget (Version II)

Side B
1. Do You Know Who You Are?
2. Back And To The Left
3. The Day's Refrain
4. A Jack With One Eye