By a Thread “The Last of the Daydreams” CD

By far one of the most painfully underrated albums ever released by Revelation Records was "The Last of the Daydreams", the 1999 debut full-length from Vancouver, Canada's By a Thread. The band was formed in 1996 by ex-members of metallic hardcore outfit Strain (who I was never a big fan of, truth be told), and later went on to release split CD's with Waterdown in 2002 (I've actually never heard this one—anyone got it?) and Still Life Projector in 2004. But this album in particular is an absolute fucking masterpiece of heavy, hard-hitting emo/indie rock, and still deserves more attention to this day.

It wasn't until about four years ago that this record really clicked with me, but when it did I was completely hooked, and listened to this disc in my old CD player/alarm clock damn near every night as I was falling asleep for like six months straight, maybe more. No joke. For one thing, the recording has that density to it that I really love when it comes to the more melodic, emo-ish side of things, as it accentuates the chunkiness of some of the riffs and really beefs up the overall delivery of the material with some added heaviness. But make no mistake, the bulk of the tracks are fairly midpaced and blatantly melodic, with emphatic singing and just the right amount of vocal harmonies making for a strong balance of feeling and catchiness. It's weird, because in a lot of ways it's textbook late-90's emo/indie sounding stuff, but at the same time I feel like By a Thread had something of a unique sound, and I wouldn't exactly compare them to any other bands off the top of my head or anything. At the end of the day, though, it's all about killer songs, plain and simple. See for yourselves:

By a Thread "Surface"
By a Thread "Walkway"

And here's a "bonus" track from the "Revelation 100: A 15 Year Retrospective of Rare Recordings" compilation that came out back in 2002, as this is without question one of the band's finest songs (it's my personal favorite, in fact):

By a Thread "Tainted"

And what kills my life is that apparently these dudes have had a new fuckin' full-length done and mastered for, like, a god damn year now! I thought Revelation was supposed to release it, but apparently the band is in "contractual talks" and attempting to "sort out things"—granted said statements come from a MySpace blog post dated last summer! They've since uploaded a few tracks from said currently unreleased album, and all the shit's great, so... I don't know what the god damn deal is, but someone needs to release that record pronto. There's just no excuse. Great music can't just rot away on a fucking shelf somewhere!

In the meantime, you can pick up "The Last of the Daydreams" new or used in various formats (it's around a buck used on Amazon.com right now), so... get to it if you like what you hear. It's a damn shame this band wasn't hailed more significantly nearly 10 years ago when this jam originally dropped. Maybe they'll get a fairer shot if that new material ever sees the light. Let's hope so...

Get It

Revelation Records
Very Distribution
Amazon.com
Amazon.com (mp3)