The Illegal Wiretaps “Excellence at the End of the World – Best Tracks of 2012”
You don’t have to tell me that The Illegal Wiretaps have released a lot of music in 2012—I’ve been listening to (and reviewing) it all. And now I’d like to tell you a story about how this strange and fateful journey began for me.
It was the summer time, I believe, and I was still living in Houston. I had noticed a free show coming up at Fitzgerald’s that was to be headlined by The Illegal Wiretaps. This made me curious as to what this band was all about and the name alone made me want to check out their music. Honestly, I was expecting the music to be something that sounded more defiant- a punk rock or oi band like Rise Against or maybe closer to crust punk. I even expected there to maybe be a hardcore edge to it ala Ignite, you know, just something in general to buck the system.
What I found after downloading the first few releases for free was quite different, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. Among the first downloads from The Illegal Wiretaps I listened to were “Of Atheists and Lovers”, “A Secret I Can’t Decode”, “Wilder Shores of Love” and probably one or two others before I ended up stumbling upon the pure awesomeness that is “Jesus, What Have You Done?”.
I had a habit at the time (Perhaps closer to an addiction) to searching Band Camp and downloading anything that I could for free. I felt like I was the publicity person for free music on Band Camp, but hey, it goes well with my gypsy belief lifestyle because what music is better than free (or pay what you can) music?
Anyone who frequents this site knows that I still frequent Band Camp, just not as much as I used to when I lived in Houston. But back then, I kept seeing these releases from The Illegal Wiretaps popping up in the “new” category when I’d search local. Then at one point it felt like I’d stopped searching for a week for some reason and all of a sudden there were all these releases popping up for The Illegal Wiretaps that I hadn’t seen before.
It was at that point in time I made it my duty (for no particular reason) to download every single piece of music The Illegal Wiretaps release and give it the individual attention it so justly deserves. Has this helped this to become more of an Illegal Wiretaps review site than a music review site? Possibly, but no matter, I still review other music.
So here is a collection of what The Illegal Wiretaps feel are their 20 best songs (Or at least the 20 they happened to choose) from 2012. If you’ve been seeing this name pop up a lot on this site and never listened to anything by them before, then this should be your place to start. “Excellence at the End of the World” is what I would categorize with Pink’s “Greatest Hits… So Far” or Bryan Adams’ “So Far So Good”. If this doesn’t get you into The Illegal Wiretaps, then try something else by them!
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