Exodus: Force Of Habit

Posted by Luminator (A) on February 22, 2015 at 14:44:58

For me and my then-college-attending friends, the summer of '92 was the best ever. Unlike people today, we actually got together in small numbers, with the primary goal of (gasp!) listening to music (predominantly on CD, with radio, cassette, and vinyl rounding it out). Music was such an integral part of our lives. During that halcyon summer of '92, when we went out to various San Francisco playgrounds to play sports, someone inevitably had a boombox. Music gave us a spiritual boost in sports. It made us made at the political climate [don't forget; at one point, fed-up people had put Ross Perot in the lead]. It made some of us fall in love. And for at least a couple of my friends, music helped them come to grips with sexual identity.

After we wrapped up playing sports, we'd grab something to eat. While eating, my friends would always invite themselves over to my house. You see, while everyone else had mass market electronics, my friends knew I had some high-end audio products. My friends thought, "Why let Lummy hog it all? Audio is meant to be played. Why not let us hear it?"

During that magical summer of '92, I did my audio shopping with girlfriends ACS and KJ. But at home, I had some Sony 3-head ES cassette deck; NAD 5000 CD player; Sony TAE-1000ESD digital surround sound preamp; Muse Model 100 power amp; Paradigm 5SE bookshelf speakers; AQ Lapis, Quartz, Topaz, and Type 4.

In late August '92, my friends on the semester system (e.g., S.F. State and Cal) went back to school. On a warm and orange-yellow mid-September day, my friend Julian and I went to the Stonestown Tower Records. There, I bought the then-new Exodus album, Force Of Habit. We took Muni Metro to the Civic Center station, walked by the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium. Little did we know that Exodus were then managed by Bill Graham Management.

Well, BGM should have told Exodus to come out with Force Of Habit not at the end of summer, but at the beginning. Despite being a very good album, Force Of Habit did not sell at all. Its target audience had returned to school. It no longer had the time or money to buy the album or catch the shows.

When it was my turn to return to UC Santa Cruz for my senior year, I did indeed bring Force Of Habit with me. Upon my mid-September move-in, my college apartment system comprised the Sony CDP-520ESII CD player; Adcom GTP-400 tuner/preamp; Adcom GFA-535 power amp; Pinnacle PN-5+ minimonitors; Monster IL-400 interconnects; and AQ F-14 speaker wire.

The weather was nice, I had new housemates, and there was (unlike prior years) an optimism in the air. When I played Force Of Habit, the brown tone and 70s-ish riffs caused one of my housemates to say, "Hey, this [system] is damn good!" My housemates thought the sound was going to be harsh and jagged, but it wasn't.

When Patty Smyth's "Sometimes Love Just Ain't Enough" came on the radio, it represented the beginning of the 92-93 school year. OTOH, Force Of Habit represented the fact that the summer was over. Thus, the following weekend, when I returned to San Francisco, to replace the IL-400s with AQ interconnects, I also brought back Force Of Habit. That album pretty much stayed in S.F., never to be brought back to Santa Cruz.

Did you notice that the photo does not show a plastic CD jewel case? This is Caroline Records' "mini-LP" reisssue. Shitty packaging. If you're going to have a CD, why would you want anything to do with crummy vinyl, including the "mini-LP" cardboard packaging? It simply rips or falls apart, within a couple of in-and-out uses. Furthermore, the mini-LP does not have lyrics.

The reissue CD does feature two bonus tracks, "Crawl Before You Walk," and "Telepathic."

Sonically, the reissue CD is an small improvement over the original Capitol Records CD. The reissue has cleaner sonics, which allow the true tone of the guitars to emerge. Furthermore, there's less blurring or blending of images.

Force Of Habit sports some fun, sing-along moments. Okay, so some songs drag on far too long. And like many Exodus albums, a few have silly lyrics.

When I listen to the reissued Force Of Habit, I am transported back to September 1992. I am once again faced with that neither/nor dichotomy. On one hand, Force Of Habit does not represent the glorious summer or '92. But OTOH, it was not part of the magical Fall '92 quarter. But from my historical perspective, that's how it should be. That should not prevent us from enjoying (or still disliking) this album. Check it out.

The Audiophiles' DJ,
-Lummy The Loch Monster

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Topic - Exodus: Force Of Habit - Luminator 14:44:58 02/22/15 (1)

RE: Exodus: Force Of Habit - fantja 14:46:38 02/22/15 (0)

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