Punk & Hardcore
Epitaph has pressed “Into the Unknown”, Bad Religion’s second album, again, in a run of a thousand copies worldwide that sold out straight away. The vinyl, which the label calls “red nebula splash”, went for $26.99 and comes with an apology letter signed by Brett Gurewitz and Greg Graffin.
“Yes, this is real,” the store listing begins. “For its first standalone pressing since 1983, Bad Religion’s Into the Unknown is back on vinyl!” The label lists it as a one-time run.
The album came out in August 1983, also on Epitaph, and swapped the debut’s hardcore for electric organs, pianos, synthesizers and slow tempos. Gurewitz has since called it a “terrible misstep”. When the band played the songs live, and once word got out that there’d be keyboards, twelve people turned up; they went back to hardcore and never toured the record.
Graffin has put it differently: the album would have gone down better a couple of years later, and it sounded like early R.E.M.
Two session players are on it, Paul Dedona on bass and Davy Goldman on drums, and it’s the only Bad Religion recording with that pair. Until now it had only been reissued inside the 2010 box set “30 Years of Bad Religion”. Eight songs, from “It’s Only Over When…” to “…You Give Up”.
Text by Marçal Bonastre