Straight Up
- Artist: Taz Taylor Band
- Album released in 2009
- Escape Music
- Genres: Metal | Hardcore, Rock
Straight Up was originally released in Europe in 2009, issued by British label Escape Music, but, according to Taz Taylor, it was never properly promoted. “It came out just when the economy went in the toilet,” he said. “We abandoned our plans to tour Europe to promote it, though we’d been there the previous two years. It was terrible timing, really. It always kind of bothered us that it was an album that had been forgotten.”
Re-released on April 27, 2012, Straight Up was rebuilt from the ground up. “We were never 100 percent happy with the mix,” Taylor said. “Looking back, we felt that we really rushed it. So I spent a bit of time in the studio and remixed the album. It sounds 100 percent better. We changed the running order as well and used new artwork.”
Ironically, the idea for the re-release first arose while demoing new material. “We’re working on some songs for possible future release, but we realized that we also had this album of music that never had a chance to be exposed to people here [in the U.S.]. In fact, we only played those songs onstage twice. So, we decided to do some shows playing the entire album all the way through. And if we’re doing that, it makes sense to make the album available again.”