Here's an, uh, antique that we found hidden in our warehouse - the original version of Give Them Rope on Edison Records from 1997, on cassette. Even on cassette, this album still slays! Just listening to this again on my favorite ghetto blaster brings back a flood of memories - seeing Coalesce at University Of Maryland when they were touring for this album, punishing the crowd with the angular sledgehammer riffage of "For All You Are" and "Did It Pay The Rent" and "Chain Smoking", the kids going absolutely apeshit, the band sounding huge and lethal even through the modest PA system that was set up in the middle of the room. Coalesce were, and still are, one of the most intense live bands I've ever seen, and even though their music would evolve and take on a bit of Southern swagger and groove on later albums, their first full length Give Them Rope has remained one of my favorite releases of theirs. So pummeling and vicious, they merged togethe extreme metal and metallic hardcore and math rock and Am Rep violence and forged it into insanely complex arrangements, abrupt stop-start time signatures and difficult sludgy riffs that you almost need a protractor to sort out. Sean Ingram's corrosive bellow sounds fucking monstrous on these 11 songs and borders on death metal, and the lyrics are a perfect mix of dark nihilism and introspection that was so popular with metallic hardcore bands at that moment in time. More than anything, you listen to this album and realize just how huge the impact was that this had on metal and hardcore in the late 90's, and how it's influenced so much music that has followed in it's wake. Might not be considered the most crucial of Coalesce's albums, but Give Them Rope is still one of the decade's most murderous slabs of mathy metallic heaviness, and remains totally ahead of it's time.