Amyl And The Sniffers announce expanded edition of ‘Comfort To Me’
Amyl And The Sniffers have announced an expanded reissue of their second album, last year’s ‘Comfort To Me’, featuring a live redux of the entire 13-track effort.
The live version of ‘Comfort To Me’ – which also sports the unreleased stinger track ‘Crave’ – was recorded on the docks in Williamstown, on the outskirts of the band’s stomping grounds of Naarm/Melbourne. It marked the first time they’d performed the record live from cover to cover, and was initially premiered last October as a livestreamed concert film.
Since its premiere, the film has remained unreleased. The expanded edition of ‘Comfort To Me’, due out on May 13 via the band’s own B2B Records and Virgin Music Australia, will mark the first time it’s available to hear outside of the stream (albeit exclusively in audio form). In the lead-up to its release, the band have shared a clip of themselves played ‘Maggot’, taken from the filmed version of the performance. Have a look at that below:
In addition to the original studio mix and its live-tracked counterpart – both of which will come pressed on a two-disc set of smoky black and clear vinyl – the expanded version of ‘Comfort To Me’ features a fold-out poster and new album artwork by graphic designer Bráulio Amado. Pre-orders for the set are available to pre-order here.
‘Comfort To Me’ was first released last September, flanked by the singles ‘Guided By Angels’, ‘Security’ and ‘Hertz’ (the lattermost of which came in at Number 28 on triple j’s Hottest 100 for 2021).
It was nominated for last year’s Australian Music Prize, the J Award for Australian Album Of The Year, and the 2022 BandLab NME Award for Best Album By An Australian Artist. Though it lost out on all three, Amyl And The Sniffers did win the BandLab NME Award for Best Band From Australia, and the 2021 Music Victoria Award for Best Live Act.
In a four-star review of the album, NME’s El Hunt opined that ‘Comfort To Me’ is “louder, sillier and at times more introspective than its predecessor, showing a more versatile side to the band”.
NME also featured ‘Comfort To Me’ as one of its top Australian picks for September 2021, writer Alex Gallagher saying: “The Melbourne punks level up without compromise on their second album, which rages with all the scrappy energy of their 2019 debut, but feels altogether more considered and coherent.”
Amyl And The Sniffers have a sprawling slate of tour dates on the horizon, beginning with a North American tour that kicks off in April. They’ll also perform at this year’s edition of Coachella, and at Primavera Sound in Barcelona.