We Forgot Our Own Album Turned 20

We forgot our own album turned 20.

The Black Sea came out June 6, 2006. I only just realized we never marked the 20th. So here it is, five months late, because twenty years is too long to let slide quietly.

Fifteen songs. We recorded it with Mikey Doling from Snot and Soulfly, and Sik World Records put it out. The title came from something I read about the actual Black Sea, how its water preserves shipwrecks on the ocean floor instead of letting them rot. That stuck with me. Thousands of us are waiting to be discovered, trapped in lives of our own making. That was the record, really. Frustration, disappointment, lost love, alienation, and at the end of it, some hope.

That summer we went out on the Sik World Rock n Roll Circus Tour with a burlesque troupe and a sword swallower. I am not making that up. We came home to San Diego, got nominated for a San Diego Music Award, and played shows called the Dirty Pirate's Ball and the Zombie Prom. It was that kind of year.

The band went on hiatus in 2007. But the record never really went away for me. People still bring it up at shows, and honestly, some of these songs still hit me the same way they did when we wrote them.

If you were there in 2006, you know. If you weren't, here are the tracks. Go listen.

The Black Sea (Intro)

Ashes of Armies

Chemical

Damn the Dream

Don't Wait

Double Negative

Drowning Not Waving

Everyone (Is Living My Life)

Heavy Metal Parking Lot

Helicopter

Protection

Shame

Strike in the Time-Bomb Town

The World Is Not Mine

Anoxia (Interlude)

What's your track? Chemical? Heavy Metal Parking Lot? Drowning Not Waving? Shame? Tell me in the comments, or over on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/p/DfWHj4lImOm/), where I posted about this too. I actually want to know.

The album is up on all the usual streaming places. Go give it a spin for its birthday, even if we are late to the party.

Cover art: "We Are The People" by Sas Christian.