Had to hustle for this one, man. This cost more than I'd like to admit, but it's so worth it. A year after Red And Clear was released the band put together this album. You can find abundant praise for their debut, but for whatever reason, Purity And Control, likely due to it's scarcity, doesn't get the same amount of mentions. However, the obscure post-hardcore and emo blogs that do mention the album are high on it.
Despite the lack of info surrounding the release, those that do cite it are right to highly regard it. Purity And Control is much more focused and dynamic than it's predecessor. Moments on Red And Clear can sound a bit scrambled and overly excited. This album as it's namesake suggests, is controlled. The band doesn't run off on tangents and keeps it's focus. The main reason the band is cited as emo pioneers is due to what you hear on this recording. It's still jagged and edgy, but, Hobart's does throw down some emotive vocals. Further, the band builds into the dynamics rather than employing start/stop dynamics (mostly, they don't abandon it completely). To point out more emo cred, long before it was vogue and when Conor Oberst was 15 years old and just brimming on genius, Giant's Chair recorded tracks at Whoopass Studios with AJ and Mike Moogis
The album was primarily recorded in KC. Hammer Press did the jackets, vinyl just shows the braille pattern, if I'm not mistaken the CD liner has actual braille type you can feel across. The song "Ballad of Jody Hamilton" brings light to this artwork as it is a spoken word piece about a blind writer, it's pretty Velvet Underground-esq and has nothing to do with the word emo. All told, it's a phenomenal album and highly recommended if you can track down a copy. Even the CD is non-existent so below is a link to the full album, I don't think the band will mind at this point.
Full Album
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