Here it is, the first record I ever owned. Even before I had a record player, I had Moose Blood’s debut 7″ Moving Home. Even just looking at these pictures gets me nice and nostalgic. This was where it all started, and what follows is four years of money I’ll never get back, but was spent (reasonably) well. It all began with Moose Blood, way back in early 2013, with a small package slipped through the letterbox of a house I’ve only lived in for ten days this year. Way back before university and America, and not quite Craig Reviews Music, there was one record that kickstarted what rapidly turned into an obsession (thankfully only for a little while). I remember this record showing up, and I remember thinking that it was pretty damn sweet, this disc of plastic which somehow contained six songs I’d grown to love in the weeks prior to its arrival. I remember thinking that I’d have to buy a record player.

Released: 2013                  Label: FITA Records
Variant: 1st /150                Purchased from: FITA Records

I bought one, eventually, and then I bought four-hundred more records not too dissimilar to this one right here. I pictured myself as one of the cool kids, buying vinyl again back before vinyl had even become popular again. I felt like I’d done something Mark Hoppus would’ve approved of. I still think that he would. Moving Home was the first of many and, as such, it remains one my firm favorites. Not only is a great debut record, but it’s a great first entry into a much bigger collection of records. I liked that Moose Blood themselves thought that records were cool, and that they liked the same stuff as me (Brand New, coffee, Bukowski). I wanted to be that kind of cool, another indie kid with a penchant for nostalgia and a growing love for vinyl. I don’t know how cool buying records ever made me, but I suppose it doesn’t really matter. I always bought records for myself, and Moving Home was the first of them. It’s a good record, as far as first EPs go, and there are some true emo/indie gems here. The likes of Bukowski and Cardis Bay never get old, and I’m a little embarrassed to say that I’ve listened to Evening Coffee a cracking 118 times since buying it on Bandcamp four years ago. There was a period when I listened to it daily.

This was the start of something for myself, but it was the start of something for Moose Blood as well, the first step on a career journey still in progress – but progressing pretty damn well. Two LPs in, the band are flying, and I look back at Moving Home able to accurately chart their assencion. What we have here are hints at the ambition the band grew to deliver upon, six songs of heart and grit and cliche lyricism which saw the band immediately make a name for themselves amongst beanie-wearing hipsters like I was way back when. It’s a nostalgic record, and I grow nostalgic writing about it. It reminds me a little of simpler times, good times, cold February evenings and college bus rides. Straight up, I fucking love this thing.