Bane formed in Worcester, Massachusetts in 1995 and spent the late ’90s becoming one of the most tireless touring bands in American hardcore — a reputation earned in vans, sleeping on floors, building a fanbase city by city before the internet made that shortcut available. Give Blood, their second full-length, dropped on October 31, 2001 through Equal Vision Records. Recorded at Salad Days Studio in Beltsville, Maryland in August 2001, it arrived two months after the country’s world had changed, and the record’s barely-contained fury landed differently for it. Vocalist Aaron Bedard’s lyrics pull from a well of exhausted, principled defiance — he’d written the songs tired and angry, and it shows in every bar of Speechless and Some Came Running.
The original 2001 pressing on Equal Vision (catalog EVR64) is one of the most meticulously documented hardcore releases of its era among collectors. Per confirmed pressing data, the first press broke down as follows: 1,125 on black vinyl, 500 on clear, 250 on brown/clear mix, 100 on red/clear swirl — and at the very top of the pyramid, only 50 copies on a true red/clear split. The split copies are easily distinguished from the swirl and mix variants: the red and clear are halved cleanly rather than blended, making each copy visually unique depending on where the pressing happened to cut. This is that rarest variant. The insert is a massive fold-out poster, four times the size of the LP jacket, printed with lyrics, credits, and band photos from years on the road. It’s fragile and frequently lost.
