Anyone noticed yet?

[Stubborn Puppet]

Seems to me like they pulled it after a friendly call from Graham's lawyers... as well as all of their VE merch. dPulse sent out a friendly and vague little statement about "It is time for us to put the past in the past and for dPulse and the VE legacy to part ways for good. We enjoyed working with VE on the project and wish them the best luck with the new PWEI. We realize that the removal of all VE merchandise must seem very abrupt, but we always knew this day would come and the timing just worked out that way."

I still wish I'd known about it sooner. It may be an ugly piece of PWEI history, but it is now the rarest piece of poppie merchandise in existense (autographed obscurities excluded of course).

The reason the 3-4 discs that exist (as well as all the discs from dPulse) are the way they are is because they don't press/burn these themselves. They use a service like CDBaby that presses the disc and prints the sleeves to order. This is pretty normal these days for any album that is going to sell less than 20,000 copies because it's the only way to remain profitable.

I've listened to it myself and it does have some valuable moments that I'm glad I've heard. The track 1 F-in and Fightin is pretty much the jam and much better than all the other versions (in my opinion) with it's much grittier approach. I didn't care much for the version of Seek and Destroy, it's too busy by far and doesn't have the hard edged cohesion of the New Noise version. The whole "Evil Mantra" version of "The Way I Feel Inside" thing is pretty cool... it's still a dumb track, but it's neat to hear. I like the "Equals Zero" version on New Noise far better than "Retro Dreaming" (nothing to do with the quality, it's about the way the lyrics flow with the music better now and how they cleaned out some of the miscellaneous sound effects that cluttered it up). Old Skool Cool (Dumb Waiters) from the VLVE is just dreadful by contrast to NNDBS - it's kind of a "woosified", softened, "house music" version that has too many competing styles and instrumentation that doesn't gel with the tough-guy nature of the lyrics - the New Noise version just kicks ass. "Street Riotin'" is probably my favorite track from this album; love the "Anger is a war on energy, generate hate for your enemy" lyric and the tracks simple, driving forward vibe... it feels like a PWEI track that would have fallen between CFS and LOTL.

The best thing about this album is that it helps me see exactly why Graham made the choices he made with NNDBS... and they were all the right choices. I still would have liked to see "Demon" and "Street Riotin'" on New Noise, but I guess there's a good reason he didn't use them... could even be that they just didn't sound right after working on and listening to them for 7 years.

[Ugly Goblin Boy]

Personally, I still like the single version of "Fuckin' & Fightin'". I know it's just lyric samples pasted over top of "Let It Flow", but it fills out that b-side so much that I can't help but enjoy it. It's a shame that "Demon" will be lost in the ether forever now, it's probably one of the truest PWEI songs that have been released in the last 17 years.

[mikenasty]

Whenever I listen to VLVE now I replace Fucking & Fighting an No Fear with their single versions and enjoy the album much more than I did when I first heard it. It gives the album more of dancie - Poppies feel for me than the noisier remixes do. NNDBAS is still much better, but there's more to like about VLVE than I originally thought. I prefer Retro Dreaming and Wasted to their New Noise equivalents.

[RolexTharsus]

On the Retro Dreaming vs Equal Zero thing, having listened to both loads now I think Equal Zero's the stronger musically but Retro Dreaming's got the better lyrics.

[negative8ball]

[AxeofMan]

I've listened to some of VLVE and if they cleaned it up it would've been a pretty good album. There are plenty of ideas but they all sound so messy and unorganized.

I prefer Retro Dreaming to Equal Zero. It sounds straight of a Sci-Fi flick and it's just so badass. The vocal distortion that comes always at a right moment and the bassline makes it ideal for some opening titles. Still, I love Equal Zero and how PWEI embraced Big Beat. If you ask me, Equal Zero should be a single with Retro Dreaming as a B-Side.

[artificialhuman]

I like that the VLVE album ended up floating around the net. It's a defacto remix album.

I asked Graham why Demon, No Fear, and anything else that came out as a single didn't end up on NNDBAS and he said it's because they had an official release. Because I'm a bastard who makes my own tracklist for albums, my NNDBAS loses Mask and Wasted Pt. 2, adds Demon, Axe of Men, the latest Every Day Is A World War, Evil Mantra, and Punk Rock Band, and swaps out Retro Dreaming (not VLVE, the original demo) and VLVE Seek + Destroy for their counterparts.

[mikenasty]

Artificial Human, you should create the ultimate fan mix and mash up Retro Dreaming and Equal Zero

[poppiestar]

Just out of curiosity, if one were to make a new tracklisted version of NNDBAS... what's the consensus for where Demon would fit in? I think I might give it a go today, just interested to know where others would put it.

[artificialhuman]