HAVE YOU EVER WITNESSED ONLY LIVING WITNESS?
Wednesday, January 16th, 2008 at 10:49am by Vince Neilstein
I hadn’t, until Andrew @ Aversionline posted a very personal homage to the Boston-based band’s seminal album Innocents, consisting of lots of lines like this: “The album’s that fucking incredible. Seriously.”
That’s the kind of passion that speaks to me as a music fan, and not that I wouldn’t listen to whatever he posted anyway — but this especially piqued my interest. And it’s fucking great, part Corrosion of Conformity badassed-ness and part punk DIY fuckyou-ness. The best part about it is that like Andrew’s post it drips with emotion, from the raw, heavy guitars to the impassioned vocals. And that voice? One of a kind.
Fans of Shadows Fall might be familiar with their cover of Only Living Witness’s “December” on the B-sides album Fallout From the War, the original of which is on OLW’s MySpace page.
Check out Andrew’s piece on Only Living Witness at Aversionline. Here’s a link to an mp3 to whet your appetite, with one more on the site:
Only Living Witness – “Downpour”
-VN
Whoa, many thanks for the nod, and very glad you liked the tracks that much! I actually listened to the album AGAIN on the way to work this morning, ha, ha!
good rock, crap vocals… like a bar band doing a tool cover.
Them’s fightin’ words Lucas! Here in Mass, we take Only Living Witness very seriously! Prone Mortal Form is pretty awesome too.
another band from my youth 10 years ago lol…incredible band…they actually broke up before this album was released…Jonah Jenkins (vox) had another band after called Milligram…which were more Melvins-ish but faster…their one LP “This Is Class War is a classic, luckily burned it before selling a slew of cds a few years ago…i don’t know if you can find it really anywhere unless there’s torrents or something out there for it…
don’t know what he’s done lately but I do know he was on that long song on the last Converge album…thought that was cool…apparently he can do no wrong lol
in short though, this is one of those albums that “saved my life” as a teen…just so damn heavy…I can rarely listen to just one song when it pops on my mp3 player…No Eden, Some Will Never Know, Total Particle Reversal…the whole cd is just complete killer and still valid today…best to buy the double pack that comes with Prone Mortal Form, which isn’t as good, but still has some killer songs in PMF, VTA, and December (which was covered not so greatly by Shadows Fall a few years back)…
i could go on and on and on about how much i love this fucking band lol…
How the hell can you say those vocals are crap? For real?? Did you even listen? A bar band doing a Tool cover? Tool wished they sounded like OLW. No discussion possible whatsoever. Pointless anyway ;)
Jonah is now doing Raw Radar War and here’s an interview I recently did with him:
http://www.asice.net/specials/232/
@ Nick. You forgot to mention Twitching Tongues as a great song of Prone Mortal Form. I love that album.
On a sidenote: Shadow Fall’s cover isn’t that bad, but it sounds way too slick vocally to me.
(I just can’t seem to NOT POST whenever someone brings up something Only Living Witness related it seems haha)
I’m not a fan of the vocals either. Reminds me of Gavin Rossdale of Bush… but worse. :( Sorry guys.
only living witness was definitely a great band. heard ‘ninevah’ on a college station back in the day and loved it. i have both albums (PMF in expanded form) plus a vinyl of freaklaw. never got to see them live even though i’m here in new england. still listen to these albums from time to time.
bonus tracks on PMF are…
Only Living Witness – 11 – Too Far Down.Mp3
Only Living Witness – 12 – Complex Man.Mp3
Only Living Witness – 13 – Dying System.Mp3
Only Living Witness – 14 – Bad Blood.Mp3
too far down is an acoustic ballad, i was quite shocked at first but it’s actually got great lyrics and it grew on me. the other 3 are faster and heavier than the rest of the album, a bit hardcore with a punk edge.
@sowhat: Too Far Down was on a Husker Du tribute album. Those other 3 tracks are from the first 7″.
@Pim
cool interview…thanx for the link!
Holy sh*t! Nice tip. On the strength of “Downpour” I just downloaded the whole album from eMusic. Awesome stuff.
Why would anyone say the vocals suck? The singer makes Only Living Witness. Innocents is fucking awesome. Especially “Knew Her Gone.”
Has anyone heard the singer (I’m totally forgetting his name) on the Converge track of “Grim Heart/Black Rose.” If you haven’t, check it out, even if you don’t like Converge—its beautiful metal, even though I feel a bit gay saying that, its true.
@ Schnaz: That’s pretty much the only Converge track I like haha. Singers name is Jonah Jenkins.
@ Colin: You can get the 2CD set pretty cheaply from Ebay. It containts BOTH Prone Mortal Form and Innocents + lots of bonus tracks and 2 videos on the disc. Worth it.
sowhat: What label is that copy of your disc on (Or is there some other identifying factor?) that has those rare bonus tracks on it? I don’t have those tracks on CD and would kill to get them! I’d like to hunt for that pressing! Thanks!
Oh, and yes, the vocal complaints… some thorough ear-cleanings are in order, folks…
Foks: Innocents and Prone Mortal Form are available at CMdistro.com for only $5 TOGETHER! Plus $2 shipping.
@ andrew
the PMF disc with 4 bonus tracks is the import version from century media in a digipack with a different cover.
http://www.discogs.com/release/1152672
if you want to know more about it, email me at daraq at mail dot com.