Catherine Wheel – Ferment – 2017, 180 Gram Vinyl LP, Reissue

Music on Vinyl. Limited 180gm audiophile vinyl LP pressing including insert. The heavily sought after debut album Ferment by Catherine Wheel is finally pressed on vinyl again! In 2016, Pitchfork ranked the album at #23 in their list of ‘The 50 Best Shoegaze Albums of All Time’ with Ben Cardew of the website commenting that ‘a good half of the songs on Ferment, their debut, are enduring shoegaze classics, while ‘Black Metallic’, in its full seven-minute glory, makes a strong claim to being the genre’s ‘Stairway to Heaven’. Ferment is the band’s most unique record; it serves as a fitting lens through which to view the group’s work throughout the 1990s. The album displays Catherine Wheel’s early attempts to meld drone-drenched shoegaze with heavy rock. After all these years, it is the record’s twin epics, ‘Black Metallic’ and ‘Salt’, that immediately illustrate why Catherine Wheel was so meaningful to so many of the bands that came after them. ‘Black Metallic’, perhaps the group’s most famous single, is absolutely otherworldly.