MEMORIES LIE FROZEN

Organized Crime Halloween MMXII Package

2012-01-16T17:19:00.000Z

The last couple of years Organized Crime records have listed a mysterious halloween package on their store, last years sold out real fast and an iPhone paypal error caused me to miss out on the records but I managed to score the shirt. I subsequently ended up being gifted a glow in the dark copy of the Integrity In Contrast Of Sin 7" from Jamie Farrell last year which I'm immensely grateful for but never ended up blogging about, one day.

Anyways, this year I was bang on the ball, I'm not missing out on one two years in a row, like last year they kept the actual details under wraps and only asked for your shirt size so we knew only one thing. Now OCR hadn't put out much in the year before, they did the Harder They Fall flexi 7" but I wasn't expecting a glow in the dark version of that, what we ended up with came a little out of left field, but not by much.

If you were hoping to be spoiler free until your copy turns up then I'd suggest not scrolling any further because there are gratuitous record pics from beyond the wax seal.

I'd already had a little spoiler of what I was to expect through some online friends (ooh, fwend) so the surprise was dulled a little, I still couldn't wait to get my hands on a copy. What we have here is a split 6" record from Rot In Hell and Vegas. The RIH side features what I'm assuming is the last song featuring Mr Nathan on vocals before they become Rot In H8000, VVegas offer up a haunting acoustic number, it was always going to be that or something blisteringly heavy. For some reason the lyrics don't match up to the vocals on the RIH side, don't know what happened there.

I've never heard of a record coming on a 6 inch, now I have. Here's a comparison next to a 7" just for shits and gigs.

Everything on the outside packaging is screen printed, the wolf logo is the same as used on the shirt and the respective band logos are on the sleeve, it came with a silver sticker amalgamating both band logos too.

I probably wouldn't have opened this had I not read elsewhere that the wax seal was put over a round sticker that allowed you to prize it open with a knife without breaking the wax. Had I not opened it I'd have had to settle on not knowing exactly what was inside the envelope. Holy Terror, pushing the boundaries of art.

Integrity / Rot In Hell – Split [Thirty Days Of Night]

2012-01-15T19:51:00.000Z

Back in February 2010 when we were all a little more freshfaced than we are today, Thirty Days Of Night announced they were about tounleash pre-orders for a split 7 inch by Integrity and Rot In Hell. I shat my pants at the time, like a lot of people because with this announcement Rot had just ended their Deathwish requested release freeze before the LP dropped (they still delayed it a while longer but that's a different story). Anyway, a few nightslater when the pre-orders went up I cancelled my plans to go to the movies andwaited anxiously for the TDON store to be updated with the new bundles, I ordered the most limited black copy plusthe standard green/blue mix there and then. I thought nothing of it at the time but no-one would have believed thatwe were to wait a further 18 months to get our hands on the things. I won’t go into detail about it all becauseit’s been well documented elsewhere, I’m just here to give a bit of backgroundand to blog about vinyl.

This puppy is one of the band only copies on white vinyl outof 100 which I ordered direct from the band on the holy terror site, therecords from TDON are safe and sound at the in-laws place. Both records are housed in a black dust sleeve, it's good to see them opting for a corresponding colour rather than just the standard white paper, it's the attention to detail that I like most about records from these two bands. This is a double 7" with the first record holding the actual split and the second being a kind of noisy accompaniment to the illustrations within the book by Herr Hellion.

The original idea was to have it housed within a hardback book but that didn't happen due to circumstances out of the band and label's control so it ended up being a double gatefold with a booklet inside which is still pretty different if you ask me. It's full of creepy photographic art and messed up drawings of a fawn guy ripping a hole into another dimension and bringing forth all kinds of beasties.

Dwid saw fit to sign each of these copieswhich is a nice touch, makes the band only part of the press that little bitspecial. Don’t expect to see any of mybands doing this though though, I think the record buying public would frown uponreceiving their copies with my name scribbled all over it in wax crayon like thescratchings of a 30 year old man child. We’d have our money requested back via paypal with a note saying “thanksa lot Duggan, you ruined hardcore.”

In all seriousness, it’s good to see this thing released andin the hands of the fans hands, the Rot tracks on here are tidy as usual, I’ve had thesongs for a little while on the down low but you didn’t read that here. Oh and pick one of these up if you’re aColohan completist, just saying. Integrity released the songs on here on their Detonate Worlds Plague 12" which I guess is technically an EP, this split was scheduled to come out ages before that record but it didn't so quit you're bitching.

Ringworm Shiz

2012-01-15T14:58:00.000Z

Just before christmas last month it got dead cold but didn'tsnow, it just stuck in the -2 to -10 zone and forced me to dig out the ultrawarm North Face coat I was forced to buy as a result (not a bad thing in mybook). So I was checking twitter aroundthe 10th of December and noticed one of my favourite groups of all time,Ringworm, were playing in a weeks time in Buffallo which is about an hour orso's drive from me. As luck would haveit I wasn't working so I jumped in the motor with the missus and strolled up tothe show, they were playing with a few bands who I wasn't interested in andEvery Time I Die who also come under that header for me. As I walked in the band before Ringworm werejust finishing up their final song so I didn't have to wait and ETID were onafter them so it looked like I was in for an early night. $12 in and I didn't have to sit throughanyone I didn't like, perfect show for me then.

Let's get this post on track then, Ringworm had justreleased a split 7" on A389 with Australia's Mindsnare, seeing as I'd justmoved to another country I didn't have the funds to order one of these onlineduring the preorders so it was a perfect time to pick up both the colour andblack versions. I don't know the numbersor anything but I'm assuming the purple is the rarer colour, it's a cool kindof semi translucent record which goes perfectly with the artwork courtesy ofthe Human Furnace. The record is housedwithin a 7" sized comic book which includes a cool little dig at Victoryrecords which I always welcome in 2012.

This is the standard black, kids these days tend to not buzzover black records and prefer to gush over a clear 12" with threealternating splatters mixed in to resemble something an student wouldcough/spew up after 48 hours of solid drinking on freshers week. I can understand not buzzing on a blackrecord due to the fact it's not the rarest colour but I've noticed a bunch oflabels recently using black as the more limited variant and making the mainpress colour so you never know kids, your black could be super rare. In this case, it's not.

Something I'm sure a lot of people know about and that Ifind a nice touch is that most of a389's releases use the same template on theA and most of the time B sides which I think adds a continuity to the records.It's normally a black background but sometimes it's changed to match the colourof the artwork like here on the Integrity To Die For 10 inches.

At the same show the band had the Madness Of War demo7" which was also released on a389, originally released on cassettein the late 90's after the band came outof hiatus, the songs made their way onto Birth Is Pain albeit rerecorded. This baby is pressed on a flexi, now I'veseen a couple people perplexed by this format on a number of blogs sayingthey've never seen one. Now I'm not oldenough to remember when these were on the front of the NME but I do rememberowning a bunch of Thunderbird flexi's that came on the front of the Frostiesboxes. They were pretty much my onlyrecords until I bought the Partners In Kryme classic "Turtle Power"single in 1990. Ninja Turtles started byvinyl addiction...

Here's a picture of them both together:

The band copies I think were out of 50 on clear and theblack was out of 200, I could be wrong so correct me with your knowledge in thecomments. What's cool about these is thefact that the silver ink used on the label makes the clear version lookinverted or non-inverted depending on the background behind it.

I received a couple of copies of both the Scars LP and theBirth Is Pain LP repress from Victory the day before I left for Canada, I did'ttake any pictures of them so if I remember once I'm home, I'll do a post aboutthem. I'm pleased Ringworm are done withtheir Victory contract, it's a shame they hooked up with them just before thelabel turned to absolute shit and started putting out A Day To Remember andother such rubbish.

2012, The End Of The World?

2012-01-14T20:55:00.000Z

I haven't been updating this blog nearly as much as I'd have liked in 2011 and looking forward to 2012 I'm planning to update as much as I can. My situation has changed considerably since this time last year, I'm currently kicking it in Canada until the end of summer so I haven't got my record player with me and I'm trying to travel light so haven't been picking up nearly as many records as I would do if I was safe and cozy in Blighty. What I have been doing however is picking up records that I couldn't pass up, be it super limited pre-orders of mysterious records or band only copies at shows over the border in the States so I have amassed a whole host of stuff I can update with over the coming weeks. There's also a whole host of stuff I've ordered from the UK that I have just sitting at the Mother in law's front room that I'll have waiting for me later in the year so I'll hopefully be blogging about those too. I'm driving the 9+ hours to Baltimore next weekend to the A389 FANiversary bash which I already know will be clearing me out of what little money I've been able to save since I've been in Canada.

So that's it, I've been slack but it will be kicked into gear again, in the meantime check out my tumblr blog which is full of plenty of random crap and reblogs of mildly amusing memes and Danzig photos.

http://danielxduggan.tumblr.com

Unholy Majesty

2011-08-02T21:22:00.005+01:00

<p>&amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="http://unholymajesty.bandcamp.com/track/the-owl-and-the-serpent"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;The Owl And The Serpent by Unholy Majesty&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;gt;</p>

My latest endeavour in hardcore, this is a taster from the demo tape that should be out on Hemlock 13 in the next couple of weeks, unashamedly influenced by the likes if Birth Is Pain era Ringworm, early 100 Demons and Systems Overload era Integrity.

The Owl And The Serpent

a malediction spat upon humanity,
to some time is an infinite commodity,
there is no beginning and no understanding of the end,
to the martyrs time is infinite, this is who we are,
in the midst of eternal ice, in blackest night, vile of mind,
a luckless bastard, unworthy, worthless, grotesque in form.
the wicked are known from the womb they stand among you the truly corrupt,
sullied as such until death spits them into the abyss,
look not to your neighbours look not to their hands but to your own,
not a soul among you is clean you are all steeped in filth,
until the rocks melt, until the seas burn,
the clock is ticking until the oceans burn

Rot In Hell / Moloch - Split [Feast Of Tentacles]

2011-07-25T13:54:00.002+01:00

I checked out Moloch about a year ago on the reccommendation of a couple of the Rot In Hell fellas, it's good shit, not surprising that the band ended up doing a split 7" then.

This one came on a couple of different colours, I believe the pressing info was 400 on black and 100 on red. The cool thing being the covers on the red records were printed with red ink, it's all screen printed with the inserts being done on tea stained paper.
Feast Of Tentacles have been putting out tidy little packages recently, always high wuality both musically and aesthetically.

I missed out on any kind of special release cover for this one, I hear there was one made for the show in Nottingham but I couldn't make the trip up unfortunately. I hope I get to see Moloch play in the near future.

Integrity - Detonate VVorlds Plague [Holy Terror]

2011-07-25T13:44:00.004+01:00

I like Integrity, I think they're all right you know? They put out a couple of duds around 2000-2002 but everything else has been pretty much solid gold. This new record is a collection of all of the new material written with the prodigal son Mt Rob Orr, more of a stripped down Integrity. If you're looking for a production similar to To Die For or Humanity Is The Devil, you're shit out of luck, this is a band doing what they want and setting out to please no-one. In fact, I'm sure if you were to not like this and then go on to tell anyone in the group, they'd be pleased, kind of like how Stewart Lee revels in the fact he isn't as popular as some of the comics you see on the panel shows on the telly. I like The Blackest Curse, it had more of a metal sound to it, this record is the one you should play to a friend who hasn't heard that band they keep seeing the kids wear the shirts of when they go to the local rock concerts.

This wasn't one of those simple pre-orders where you go to the website and order all of the colour variants at one, this was a staggered release. Holy Terror had the purple copies (which came with the big ass patch and CD version with the extra tracks and interview) and the black while Hellfish had the yellow which didn't go on sale until a few days later, the red copies went up on Holy Terror a few weeks after I got mine in the post, these are the band copies out of 100, wish I'd known beforehand. Seriously, if you were to not go online for a week you'd probably miss out on another Integrity pre-order. I settled on just the one colour so that i at least had a copy of this on vinyl, saving money is real hard eh.

Invisible ink is something that has been used on many an Integ record in the past couple of years, this one is no exception, all of the song names on the back are written in it too which makes for a less busy but more artistic sleeve. The CD version also uses the same technique. My copy came with a free patch, I haven't got a suitable jacket to put it on without removing a Rot In Hell one, plus I haven't even worn it out of the house yet. Fucking sewing.

It's hard to get a decent picture of the vinyl, in normal light it's purple, that's what colour it is officially, but try to take a picture of it in my flat and it either looks blue in the light, or nearly black when placed on the table. It's a good tone nonetheless, I might order the red vinyl as I've seen a few posted online and it's nic, plus it's more limited so that automaticly makes it better.

Out Of Hand - Dirty South [Hemlock 13]

2011-07-19T10:50:00.000+01:00

Out Of Hand, the little shits, these guys used to cause so much shit when they played. It was amazing, real shows should be dangerous, you should be worried that people are going to get seriously hurt, you should be on the look out for flying fists, feet or chairs. These guys were the real deal. At the time this record came out, I was broke as hell, working a minimum wage job and paying way too much on rent and bills to even contemplate buying vinyl, in fact I was selling a lot of my records to get by. Something I have been regretting for years now.

I picked this baby up a few months back when Billy Lumm was shedding off his record collection to fund a round the world trip, I'm guessing Nate must've found a box of them after the rest sold out and made a bunch of special covers. Correct me if I'm wrong, that is pure speculation.

Best thing about this record is the run off etching "Jon IB: CT's hardest mosher." Ha!

I'm off out for a Nando's.

Right Brigade - S/T [Stillborn]

2011-07-19T10:38:00.000+01:00

A little while back, batween last December and now, I found out that Stillborn records (Run by Jamie HAtebreed) were selling off a bunch of records real cheap. One of the records that was going cheap was the Integrity/Hatebreed 7" which i already owned, the thing was, to clear a bit of space they were giving away a free record with every order and the Right Brigade 7" was one of those free records.

The record is on pink vinyl, which I have no clue as to what the pressing info is, but for such a hard band, pink wax is an ironic choice and I for one like the choice.

If you haven't listened to Right BRigade yet, I suggest you do, they didn't get as much hype as some of the other bands from Boston around the early 00's, but more current UK bands like Cold Snap took a lot of influence from these guys. Definitely worth your time, they did an LP on Revelation which is a banger too, I picked that up when I ran a distro in '02/'03.

I've neglected this blog of late, mostly because I haven't been buying as much vinyl and mostly saving for a big move next month, but I have been buying the odd gem, over the next few weeks I'll get back into posting again.

November Coming Fire - Dungeness [Thirty Days Of Night / Anchors Aweigh]

2010-11-28T12:36:00.000Z

Picked this up at the NCF reunion show at TDON 6 yesterday, it's a split release from TDON and Anchors Aweigh from Italy. It never got a vinyl release when it was released through Reflections in 2006 and it's a real shame that it didn't get a vinyl release right away so it's good to see these labels stepping up and finally getting this gem cut on record four years later.

Artwork is slightly altered, taking the basic feel of the original CD release and expanding it to fit the gatefold LP format nicely. The first few copies sold at the show came with a nice little bonus for old times sake in the form of the original 2002 demo which showcases a band in a more visceral and metallic vein of bands like The Haunted or even Arkangel. Some good gang vocals on this baby. They only made 138 copies of it originally, although it did take a while for them to make the covers up and sell them at a show, so long in fact that the first Break In show I played in 2003 where we debuted our demo, they finally had the NCF one available. They quickly outgrew the sound of the demo, it's good to see them still embracing it by adding this little extra in to the LP.

There were 250 records of each colour pressed, each colour exclusive to each label, I saved a bit of cash having an LP shipped from Italy by picking both up from the band, thrifty. Good choice of colour combinations.

The dust sleeve is signed by the band, I didn't go all fanboy and get them to do it, the first few came like it. Kind of cool if you like that sort of thing.

It's good to see these guys getting their shit out on vinyl so long after they first called it quits, if ever there was a record from a UK band that warrants the vinyl treatment it's NCF. Here's hoping for Canaan next.

Alaska / End Reign - Split [Fist In The Air / Worthless Nights]

2010-11-23T19:14:00.003Z

This is a little bit of a landmark for all parties involved, the first vinyl release for band Alasks, End Reign plus the label Fist In The Air (Worthless Nights put out the Angst 7" already). This whole thing came together pretty fast, I first heard about it in the summer and Alaska had already started recording their side. I'm not going to review the music as such, all I'll say is both bands play a similar style of pissed off metallic hardcore in the vein of bands like Rise & Fall and Cursed. I know it's a bit of a lazy comparison but you'll agree it's pretty spot on, plus they're good bands to be compared to. Both bands are fairly new on the scene with one or two releases under their belt each and I can tell from the songs on show here that they've hit their respective strides with these batch of songs.

Artwork is crisp as fuck, a simple black and white affair by Mr Rupert who is known for handling the illustration for November Coming Fire's Dungeness LP. It's my favourite piece I've seen by him and it definitely accompanies the music well. The only bad thing isn't asthetic but packaging, the record itself was mailed inside the sleeve and one of the copies teared at the top due to the package being thrown about in transit. Anyone reading this who posts records in the mail, please make sure you remove the record from the cover when packing it for delivery to avoid this whether you run a label or are sending a record to a friend. This has happened to at least 5 of my records over the past 6 months, a pet peeve if you will.

Vinyl colour wise we've got a winner, no gawdy splatter in three separate colours on a bad base colour here, just simple clear and clear blue. The colour choice adds to the crisp look of the set, definitely a good decision.

Clear out of 150: (that isn't a pube, honest, it's record fluff, I'd just picked it up off the turntable and it had new record residue on it)

Blue out of 350:

I managed to secure a couple of pre-order covers too, these are just standard 7x7" sheets of card numbered out of 50, a nice touch and icing on the cake. I know Alaska did two lots of release covers recently, 5 of each design and End Reign have one in the works too.

Rot In Hell - Niu [A389]

2010-11-09T23:56:00.001Z

This is a one sided live EP which I have on tape from Grot Records, they did a couple of different covers and I was meant to do a post about it along with a bunch of other things over the past couple of months that I just haven't got round to doing, real life eh. Anyways we've (Santa Karla) been playing this beast in the van since I got it and it really captures the pissed off live sound that Rot have. You can't hear the dancing but you just know everyone's losing their shit, or maybe they were just standing around not knowing what to do like at CTW, seriously, this band make me want to punch someone in the face or grab a girl inappropriately whilst picking them up when they fall over moshing to Cold Snap. Wise up guys, this is the band you want to break your nose to.

This is out of 300 I think, all the records are on black too, you can't see too well from my amazing photographic skills but the cover is screen printed with silver ink. The whole thing is more DIY than a regular A389 release, but coupled with the tape version and the fact it's a live recording it all ties together nicely.

Side B has the same labels as The Blackest Curse, you don't see me complaining. It would've been cool to have a screen printed b-side but I know these were done as a kind of last minute release so there probably wasn't much time for such a thing.

Withdrawal - Unknown Misery [Wendigo]

2010-11-09T23:38:00.000Z

Another from the A389 distro, I've only got this one on black so I thought it'd be cool to have a second copy on gold. This one comes with a lyrics sheet unlike my other copy, but instead of a card cover it's a paper cover, both are colour photocopies. I think I may copy the lyric sheet for the black record, it's better than nothing, is that the done thing?

Haven't a clue on the pressing info for this, I guess the guys pressed it on their own label as a demo or something, it used to be that colour vinyl was rarer than black but these days a few labels use black as the rare colour, pretty weird but I can understand that. People want to buy a record more if it's on a cool colour, if there's less black record to shift then there's less risk of being left with 10 boxes of something and more chance of shifting them on the unsuspecting newbie vinyl buying public.

Go buy a copy of this record, support Canadian.

Disciple - Scarab [S.A. Mob]

2010-11-09T23:27:00.002Z

I got an order through from Lord Dom over at A389 today, the main reason I did the order was for the new live Rot In Hell LP (but we'll get to that later), so I decided to pad out the delivery with a few more records to make the delivery price from the states seem a little more worth it. Of course the more records you add, the more the postage gets so I ended up spending more anyway, what a tit.

The Scarab 7", an early slice of Disciple and one of my go to records since I first found them all those years back. For ages I only had it on first pressing black and gold but this week I ended up with another 2 copies, the other being one from SiegexPerilous which I'll post about when I can get a decent light source in my house. By decent light source I mean when the clouds go clear just enough for me to be able to shoot the records I picked up at the CTW fest at the weekend.

This is the final press version that SA MOB pressed in around '06, EMS did this and the Shockwave 7" at the same time, I didn't bother getting either of them as at the time I was a pauper and multiple copies of the same record didn't appeal as much to me. I guess the nerd in me hadn't reached full maturity by then.

Artwork is largely the same, slightly different card for the insert but nothing has been touched, even the name has stayed the same, for those not in the know, they added the x's to the name later on as there was, obviouosly, another christian band called Disciple, the A.D. was added just before the Heaven And Hell LP. This pressing is out of 581, there's 17 on smokey mix which is the transition colours between the black (out of 2!) and clear. I think the chances of me finding the balck from this press are pretty remote, but not impossible.

I'm doing this post whilst at work on a nice overnight shift and haven't got the rest of the records to hand, but I know I'm missing the following six records out of the complete set of 10:

First press:
Test /3
Green #ed w/ merry christmas written on the label /101
Blue w/ yellow labels /102

Second press:
Test /5
Black /2
Smokey mix /17

Integrity - The Blackest Curse [Deathwish]

2010-11-06T16:08:00.002Z

I didn't post about this record straight away because I knew I'd be picking up the second press from the Deathwish store at some point and I didn't want to post three times in as many months about the same record. The record is numbered out of 30 copies from the first press records of the red vinyl (which are out of 300), they have stamped inserts which are wax sealed and Dwid sketched a photo which is included inside the sleeve. I know Herr Hellion likes to make these special variations of his groups records and whilst it makes it that little bit cooler to own a rare variation it also adds a personal touch to an already great package that this LP is.

A closer look at the sketch:

Close up of the wax seal:

So that's the "special edition" of TBC, four copies of the first press so far, missing a test which I know for a fact I'll never own since there were 2 made and one went on eBay for about $400. Onto the second press, this is out of 1000 so I didn't rush to order one since I'm pretty confident the real nerds were all over the first press. They're all on grey, I saw Marcus posted about this one the other week and I agree they missed a trick by not pressing it on black, but word is the third press may be noir so I guess I've got another record to look forward to purchasing.

So that's 5 copies of the record I own now, I guess the red is technically a spare/double since I have the special version of it. Looks pretty cool, also I have 4 digital downloads spare if anyone wants one, I suppose you could call it a gift, leave a comment if you want one.

Alpha & Omega - Life Swallower [Reality]

2010-11-03T10:49:00.000Z

A couple of weeks back my band played an all dayer with Bane, Trapped Under Ice and Alpha & Omega. It was a good turnout and A&O blew me away, which is why I picked up these records (I got a shirt too but I'm not posting about that). This is the euro press of the record on Reality Records, which adds the 7" to the end of the LP also. That's coming in the post from Hellfish at the moment.

I've got a couple of records from Reality which came from a trade with a Belgian distro, the covers on these LP's are all the same, reverse printed with gloss insides but the card while being pretty good quality is pretty flimsy.

I nabbed both the red and grey versions the band had with them, they said the grey is out of 300 and is meant to be only sold on the tour, I guess if they have any leftovers they'll go on the online store. The red is opaque, when I bought it I assumed it'd be clear, never assume, it makes an ass out of you and me.

Man Hands / Toecutter - Split

2010-10-27T18:15:00.000+01:00

Bit of a reunion this one, I'd not really paid much attention to any of the bands the other guys in Winter In June or Urotsukidoji did after they both split up, yeah they went on to be in bands like Gallows, The Beak In and November Coming fire but that was as far as my curiosity took me. Man hands is Ross, James, Scott and Gareth, other than Gareth's antics in the mighty NCF the other lads haven't made big waves within the hardcore community. So when I hear they'd got together and were practicing some new jams with plans to record a demo that was fast and pissed off I was interested. I saw them play in Canterbury a few weeks ago not knowing they'd pulled together a split with a band called Toecutter, even better was that they had it available there and then. Cheers then. I suck at comparisons but it sounds to me like the Some Girls school of rock with the odd post hardcore nod mixed in there, I'll be picking up the next record for sure.

Didn't listen to the Toecutter side, I will do, but I have a bunch of new Integrity records to keep spinning before I stray out to new territory, I can't give another band my full attention until the holy terror is out of my system.

I think they did 300 copies of this record, black and white artwork, bit of a nerdy cover that is pure DIY, come on, they had Man Hands shirts that were spray stencilled on Primark shirts, you know the deal.

Go see this band, buy a record. Always good to see a dude I was in a band with years ago still writing decent riffs, hopefully I can get a show or two with them in the future.

Unbroken - Re-issue Re-package Re-evaluate The Songs [Indecision]

2010-10-18T12:43:00.001+01:00

I picked up this baby from the Unfbroken reunion show in London this weekend, I honestly never thought I'd get to see them play seeing as they originally split a few years before I even knew what hardcore was and I never had the money to front to get to one of the reunions they did in the states. I'm not going to say anything more than it was truly mind blowing, an unforgettable set.

The record itself is essentially the two LP's and the comp of rarities packaged together on the same colour wax in an interesting triple LP gatefold. I've not got any 3xLP's so it's all new to me this double fold out lark. Pressing is out of 300, pressed for the show, when I picked up my copy it was just before they hit the stage and the dude doing merch said there was only a few left. I could see from the pile of empty crushed boxes at the side of the table that they'd shifted a fair chunk of them. The show was a hefty mix of british and euro dudes, so these will have a good spread across the continent from direct sales let alone the amount of people who'll be flipping it on ebay thinking they'll be in for a sure thing. If I were to get rid of mine it'd be for xDisciplex records, or a Shockwave demo tape, just sayin'. I was a click or two away from ordering this from the Indecision site a couple of months back on clear vinyl, definitely preferable to a raspberry ripple feel but this was less hassle to get. I'm all for getting multiple colours but considering I missed the original press and add to that the fact it's a discography I'm happy to leave this as a one off. My bank balance is grateful for this decision no doubt.

Check out this shot from the inside foldover, if you missed the London reunion then this is representative of what you missed out on.

Listen to this band if you haven't already, I'd go so far as to say they are life changing.

Midnight Souls - Colder [Reflections]

2010-10-02T11:55:00.000+01:00

These guys are from Belgium and play the style of hardcore you'd hear from the early '00 bands on Bridge 9 and Indecision. Think Modern Life Is War, Count Me Out and American Nightmare. Reflections picked them up a few months back and this is their debut 7", I've seen them live a few times when my band played with them in Belgique and they've always impressed. Artwork courtesy of Linas Garsys for that authentic early 00's feel and lyrically you'd be forgiven for thinking they were brought up in Boston. They were meant to have copies on white/black split too but a minor plant fuck up meant it was just black or white, one less record for me to buy I say, no big deal. I haven't seen anything from Garsys artwork wise for a good while, minus the Hatewaves 7" on A389 but that was a kind of Unknown Pleasures rip so it doesn't count. The guy has still got it, oh, these guys got Alan Douches at West West Side to master the record, he did a lot of mastering for hardcore bands in the states, still does actually. Good choice on that, gives it a more authentic sounds, plus the guy mastered xDisciplex, word.

I think the white is out of 150:

With the black out of 350. I could be wrong, correct me in the comments if I confused this a little.

The cover image goes round to the back, would probably have been better if it was a folded card cover rather than a glued down cover but it still looks boss when you put them next to each other.

Seriously check this band out, they're tight. www.myspace.com/midnightsoulsneversleep

What's Eating Gilbert - Thinking 'Bout Her [Epitaph]

2010-10-02T11:38:00.002+01:00

Earlier this year Chad Gilbert tweeted that he was putting some songs from his little solo jaunt up on his new site (www.whatseatinggilbert.com) for free download. This made me happy. I've been a long time fan of New Found Glory and I can honestly say I took no enjoyment in listening to Shai Hulud after he left, the 3 or 4 dudes they had since him just didn't have the passion, for that reason, I was out. When he said he was doing some solo stuff I was curious as to how it would sound, would it be acoustic singer/songwriter stuff or would it be like NFG offshoots that didn't make the records of the past? The answer was somewhere in between, more along the lines of a semi-acoustic New Found Glory writing songs in the 50's. He put 3 tracks up on the site, 2 of which are on this 7". I can honestly say I had these on repeat on my ipod for weeks, they're so catchy. A month or so back Chad announced that he was putting out a 7" which would have a track that wasn't made for download, I instantly ordered one of each colour. The new track My Old Town is a little slower than the ragers already released which is a good contrast.

The gold is out of 300:

The red is out of 700:

Artwork is reminiscent of the movie That Thing you Do, directed by Tom Hanks (brilliant film). Pure 50's right down to the record labels and the 360 stereo sound icons. The songs have a whiff of the aforementioned Hanks movie and seeing as New Found Glory covered the title track from it on their From The Screen To Your Stereo EP back in '00 I felt it fitted with his vibe. Good work.

There was a deal where you get a shirt too, seeing as the missus is a big fan of the music and the man himself I thought I'd get her one. Good to see that cheeky smile once in a while.

Really looking forward to the next release, he's always updating his blog with more free songs which will more than likely be released on vinyl/CD in the future, you could do worse than listen to the stuff he puts out.

Burning Love - Songs For Burning Lovers [Deranged]

2010-09-24T00:59:00.001+01:00

I started to lose hope of receiving this in the post, this package took 7 weeks to cross the pond from Canada, I had faith however as my birthday card from the old dear was a few weeks late and she said she'd posted it at least 3 weeks before I officially became old this year. Now I'm not ashamed to admit I stole the mp3 versions of this from the internet, I'd already handed over the money to Deranged Records for the vinyl so it isn't stealing. I love how I justified my illegal activity, sue me. I make no secret about my addiction with this band at the moment, the demo rocked my socks, it's pure energy. The LP has a few tracks from the demo on it which is good for me, I fear change and having a few older tracks eases me into the listening experience. Musically the new songs aren't much of a departure from the demo material, they come across like a dirtier punk rock version of Queens Of The Stone age, whichh isn't a bad thing eh.

I don't know the exact numbers for each record but I know the red is the most limited, with a bunch of these being sold by the band. White is the middle amount and standard black is the regular common record.

The red is actually a little transparent, I thought it was just solid red at first, it's not see through like when a black record is so piss thin that it looks clear. I like that the labels on one of the sides is a kind of generic one that you'd get on records in the 60's, I've not got many records from Deranged so can't find out if they do this for many others, would be cool if this is a kind of standard thing though.

Ancient VVisdom / Charles Manson - Split [Withdrawal]

2010-09-10T23:58:00.000+01:00

I know a few people that found it hilarious that Charles Manson was still releasing music, I guess to Joe public it could be a little strange but he's getting those recordings out of the joint for our listening pleasure and that's all that matters to me. Ancient VVisdom is the new band of ex Integrity/Final Plan member N. Jochum, it sounds like a doomy folk Danzig. The two tracks on this are so good, check this out right away. The Manson tracks are similar in style to the ones on the Holy Terror 7" Dwid put out earlier this year, half poetry based songs, half jam, pure Charlie. All of the tracks are on one side of the LP and side B is just smooth. I assume this was a little too long to fit on both sides of a 7", I'm cool with that. Artwork is by Charlie's friend Star, I like it, reminds me of some awesome pagan ritual or something. This came on 4 colours, 3 of which you can get from the Withdrawal records store, the other direct from the bands.

Mixed out of 306. This is that standard colour you get sometimes, it's like a bit of everything chucked in to randomly get a colour, I think some plants give you a deal on using this because they get to recycle old cut offs or something. It looks kinda sucky but it works.

Red out of 151. My favourite of the variants, it's cool how there's some black swirls going on there too, I picked one up for Ben SK at the same time and his one is different in that the black is less prominent but still there. I'm guessing that a lot of these were splattered with black after the main black press was finished.

Blue out of 57. This one I had to get direct from a band, in this case one of the ATWA stores Charlie has one of his helpers set up.

The other variant is black out of 366, we all know what that looks like so I took a closer shot of the label. Those in the know will get it.

These look pretty tight as a collection, kind of pissed I didn't pick up all of the Charlie 7"s from HT, cannot wait for more AVV music, two songs just doesn't cut it. They have another track on the myspace page, go have a listen, you know how to use google.

The View

2010-09-06T22:29:00.000+01:00

I seemed to have a bit of a problem building up this summer of records being strewn around the house in various rooms. The kitchen had a few on top of the microwave, there were some around the TV in the living room and my spare even had a couple of 7"s in there, the record player and all round musical mecca is in the bedroom. I've successfully turned the far end of the room from an empty space into my own man cave. I got a few more boxes from the mother in law and decided it was time to get them all in the same place within arms reach of the record player so I can listen to them a little easier, they shouldn't really live downstairs where I have to bring a pile up whenever I need them. No, for a real session I need to cover the floor with so many records that the god awful mustard coloured carpet of my nice little rented maisonette can't even be seen. So this picture is basically what I can see from the chair next to the stereo, everything is in order. I give it two weeks before the place looks like a shit tip again and I can't find anything.

Gehenna - Upon The Gravehill [King Of The Monsters]

2010-09-05T11:58:00.001+01:00

I'll admit I'm a little new to this band, I only picked up the collection record 'War Of The Sons Of Light And Dark' last year while trawling through some label's online stores, I gathered a few records on mp3 after that and always meant to get some more of their stuff on vinyl. This month I succeeded.
This is their '03 record repressed on lovely coloured wax, same label, I think it's Mike Cheese's own label, correct me if I'm wrong (edit: I was wrong). I don't know the numbers on the first press, and I'm not normally one to hunt things down on ebay, if I missed it first time around, I missed it, move on. Unless it's Disciple, then I need to get it all.
I ordered a couple of these with the thinking that I'd pick one up for someone in the UK who wanted to get one and didn't want to pay the postage for just one record. I assumed I'd only be getting the purple vinyl which is out of 110, it took me a little while to notice the records were both different, only when I noticed one was slightly darker did I find out I had one blue and one purple. That was kind of cool actually because now I didn't have to bother with any trades or sorting out someone to take it off me, I had pretty much a full set of the second press (there were 6 copies on black, for the band like).

Purple out of 110:

Blue out of 550:

Holding them up to the light shows they're definitely different colours but if you see them without being illuminated from the back they're nigh on indistinguishable from one another:

Another thing is that the sleeves are numbered, but out of 110 each, did I get a purple cover with a blue record inside? This is the sleeve for the purple record:

While this is the sleeve for the blue record:

Anyways, enough of that, onto the artwork, this one's got a fold out insert, one of those ones where it folds out to four times the original size and I'm reliably informed that this press has lyrics unlike the first press, always a good thing (Edit: that was misinformation). I kind of hate it when the lyrics aren't including, almost like the band has something to hide or they're embarassed in a way of the lyrical content. Some bands leave a URL and say the lyrics are going to be there, but how long are they going to pay for that hosted URL? November Coming Fire did that on Black Ballads, they actually never got round to even making the website so good job they put the full lyrics on the 7" version.

The other side has the full front artwork, good job, another potential framing victim there.

Lastly, Mike put a little note in with the records, the personal touch, I've said it before and I'll say it again, more labels should do this.

Integrity - Those Who Fear Tomorrow (repress) [Organized Crime]

2010-09-03T10:45:00.004+01:00

Micha! This is the big one I've been waiting for, the Organized Crime repress of Integrity's first full length. I posted a while back about the 'In Contrast Of Sin' repress, I missed out on all three colours for that one and as such, I missed out on the cool extras that came with it, this time I was determined to get the whole lot. I think I succeeded quite well. The record comes on three different colours, if you ordered all three at the same time and were one of the first 100 pre-orders then you get an envelope with a bunch of old flyers which is stamped on the front. That in itself is pretty awesome and adds a personal touch.

The black swirl vinyl came with a black and silver Stephen Kasner cover which is his own interpretation of the Francis Bacon original artwork much the same as the previous repress, mine was numbered number 28 rather than being one of the final 50 like before. Score.

Here's the jammy part, as my order was number 28, I was part of the first 30 which means I got a Kasner sketch edition. Basically he did a quick sketch of the umbrella dude on the inside of the cover and signed it, turns out I can be lucky now and again.

For proof there was a laminated card inside telling you that you are basically a winner.

Front:

Back:

Dwid has updated the artwork inside and out, all of the text is done with that cool invisible ink that he seems to like using these days, some of the text, like on the front, so it's a more glossy effect to the background. The other text you can only see by holding it against the light, I tried to get it to show up in a picture but it is bloody hard to represent. For example this snap I took of the inside of the gatefold has the skull behind the lyrics, you should probably buy a copy if you want to see it properly.

The back cover came out a little better.

The pink and swirl records both have stamps on the white bags too, I can't imagine how long these all took to put together, they've put a lot of work into the whole package, I prefer labels to pull their finger out and do something cool like this rather than just to stuff the records in a mailer and send it out without even a note of thanks.

Red out of 680

Pink vinyl, #28/225

Black swirl out of 320, this came with the Kasner cover

To top it off, the mailer was spray stencilled inside so you can keep the records in their own box, icing on the cake or what?

Finally, just for shits and gigs, a shot of everything that came in the set. The good news is there's about 4 more records in the series to come, cannot wait.

Edit, I noticed this the other night while having a listening session, the label on the A side smells like maple syrup, but not the B side. Now that's weird. Not as weird as you think I am now though, you probably think I smell every piece of vinyl before I put it on the turntable, normally that wouldn't be the case, but this time it is. My buddy Dan actually noticed it, I think he wanted to eat the pink vinyl, it kind of looks tasty in a 5 years old chewing everything brightly coloured kind of way.

Integrity - Septic Death [Victory]

2010-09-03T10:10:00.000+01:00

This is a weird one (unusual for an Integrity record to be described as unusual isn't it?), this is basically two Septic Death tracks with Dwid's vocals recorded in place of the original vocals. Originally given away with copies of a zine called Bloodbook, Victory did a repress of it on white, clear and black. This is the second record I got from the missus as a birthday present. The vinyl has a whisp of white in it on the edge, this would suggest that this was made just after the white records and the flecks of white are leftovers from that run. I like it when that happens, I think the term is transitional records. My copy hasn't got an insert, I think the original dude must have lost it or something, don't know how though, I've never lost something like that, but then again, I'm not retarded.

Integrity / Psywarfare - Split [Victory]

2010-09-03T10:03:00.000+01:00

I got this one last week as part of a set of two for my birthday as a gift from the girlfriend, she knows the score. This one is probably the only record I know I've got the full set instantly because the whole press was on these picture discs. Two tracks from Integrity and two from Psywarfare (Dwid's side project). The Integ tracks on this 7" are earlier recordings of a couple from 'Seasons In The Size Of Days' which is one of the full lengths that I still think is up there as some of their best work. Apparently the photo on the Psywarfare side was taken by Jack Abernathy, that guy is mysterious isn't he. The cool thing about the Psywarfare side is that it has locking grooves at the end of each track which is the same groove every record has at the end of each side, funny how Victory even mentioned that on the front sticker to make sure people didn't whinge they had a faulty record.

xDisciplex - The Revelation [Organised Crime]

2010-09-02T23:09:00.002+01:00

Mad love for this group, I've posted a couple of times about how much I dig them, this is not going to be any different. This is the final full length, came out in about '03, they stripped down to a 4-piece this time and the sound is less breakdown heavy and much faster than previous efforts. If truth be told I think I prefer this one to the earlier stuff, especially vocally, gone are the raspy grunting vocal style from the 'No Blood, No Altar Now' era and in are a more shouty style, almost as if Dan Quiggle is doing an impression of Ray Cappo for want of a better comparison. I didn't know this got a vinyl release as the CD was on Triple Crown who did the last Shockwave record and that didn't get a vinl release so I assumed they jibbed the idea off. That's where Organised Crime steps in, it's one of the dudes who used to work at Victory since the good old days and he started his own label, this is OCR002. I've got a 3-way live split 7" with The Promise and Terror from ages ago that I didn't realise was on this label, looking at the discog they've been putting out pretty good shit since the beginning. So this Disciple record came on 3 colours, all with screen printed covers, they're not the full sleeve kind, but the ones that are a folded sheet of card with a third height back, I've not got any LP's with this kind of cover, plenty of 7"s though. They're all hand numbered out of 750, according to the OCR site they had a lot more covers made up than records, I guess it was a printing error or something, wouldn't mind having one of the spare ones to frame.

I didn't think I'd be getting anything special other than the three LP's but when I opened the package I actually got one of the 50 final show covers. I remember them announcing the show and there was serious debate whether I should make the trip to Erie to attend, I kind of wish I did but I was broke, cry me a river.

Front cover:

Back (47/50, tight):

The final show cover is out of 50 and the white vinyl that comes with it is out of 108.

Grey out of 105

Red out of 700

This is the back of the regular cover, the lyrics are on an A4 copied cover, the whole package has a real DIY vibe going on, it's a good choice. Makes for a more individual look in the end I think. My Disciple collection is coming along nicely, I'll have 4 different versions of the Scarab 7" soon too, I only have two at the moment.

It's getting to the point where I have enough Disciple vinyl to be able to take a photo of the whole collection, there are still a few gems I need to seek out before I do though, it'd be embarassing to take a photo with an easy to find one missing wouldn't it.

Sabbath Assembly - Restored To One [The Ajna Offensive & Feral House]

2010-09-02T15:10:00.000+01:00

Bit of a strange one this, we're digging into the neo gospel genre here I guess. These are all recordings of a bunch of songs the processians used to sing in their gatherings in the late 60's/early 70's. Basically if you're into the Process Church and read up on this sort of stuff then you'll dig it, Aversion did a review of the record here that gives more of the back story to how this came to be and who was involved in the recording, I suggest you read that too.

Gold vinyl, when I ordered it I guessed what they meant was clear orange which is always referred to as gold vinyl but this is opaque metallic brown, or a true gold vinyl colour. I used to own a Deftones 7" single for Be Quiet And Drive that was this colour, completely forgot about it until I saw this record, I used to love nu-metal back in '98, not H8000 metalcore like I should have been into. What a loser.

Artwork is minimal for sure, it's all gold text on a white background, no 4p logos or any Process images of any kind, it keeps it mysterious. The card that the sleeve is made out of is probably the thickest I've ever seen on an LP, it's almost like a bound book and the record barely fits inside, good job it's not 180 vinyl or I doubt it would fit at all. The picture I took kind of shows how thick the card is, the sleeve isn't even one piece of card folded into shape like a regular record, it's two pieces with a kind of glossy sticker covering holding it all together.

Haven't been able to stop listening to this record since finding out about it, constant rotation on both my ipod and record player, the songs are so catchy I find myself humming them at work. I hope I don't start singing them out loud in the office though, people might think I'm one of those religious ones, you know, the ones who knock on your door and give you leaflets about saving your soul. No one can save mine, I lost it when I laughed at that picture of Jordan's kid.

Rose Kemp - Unholy Majesty [Aurora Borealis]

2010-08-24T15:36:00.001+01:00

This record is a real beauty, check out what Uncle Nate said about it on his blog, I can't say anything about it that hasn't been said already, all I can say is you need this in your life. The CD version is on One Little Indian Records, this LP was licenced To Aurora Borealis Records and what a package this is. First off the artwork is super clean and literally pops off the cover, it's done by Glynn Scrawled who you might recognise from doing bits and bobs for that band Rot In Hell. The layout really takes advantage of the extra space the gatefold format allows, two images on the inside with limited credits and a final fourth image on the back. Job done. The insert is the record bag too and that's just black text on white giving you the wonderful lyrics and somewhat jovial thanks list. I'm pretty siked that I managed to get this on red, there was 1000 pressed with 300 on red and the rest on black, I ordered it from some online store here in the UK and by chance I got this colour, result!

Inside artwork:

Back:

Biter End - Guilty As Charged [Deathwish Inc]

2010-08-14T17:41:00.001+01:00

Picked this up last night, all dayer in CT, bunch of good bands, bit of an unplanned break in the middle, Trial cover and hangouts. Good shit. I'd heard these guys before the show but hadn't paid a lot of attention to them, maybe they'd been on in the van or someone put them on during Monday night hangouts. Live they have plenty of energy and the crowd were losing their shit.

The LP cover is reverse printed, I've got a few of these now and if my band ever gets something pressed on 12" then I'm going to make sure we get this. Basically the shiny side which is normally on the outside is on the inside giving the outside a matt effect, it's the little details that make a record.

The vinyl colour (maroon) is out of 1000, the total first press was 2000 with the other half split 300/700, kinda cool I got to buy a Deathwish record direct from the band, most of the time it comes via my awful mailman.

Insert is thick card stock too, basically the kind of quality you expect from this label, no expense spared. I've been spinning this all morning, recommended.

Limited covers

2010-08-14T17:24:00.000+01:00

Quick one, as I mentioned in my post about Cold Snap's new record, I missed out on the limited cover they had available on their jaunt with The Hard Way due to me going to see the smug comedian Stewart Lee. In an act of kindness I was able to acquire a copy from The Dave Mayes yesterday and I am very grateful. The quality of the cover is actually a lot better than most limited covers, normally bands just chuck a photocopied piece of paper over the regular record (which I love by the way, that's not me being an opinionated fuck) but these guys have gone the extra mile and gotten them printed up on nice thick card stock. Good work.

I got this number:

At the same show there was a Breaking Point/Wiretap cover available with artwork by Big Tom, I knew I'd be after one of these and Saker was kind enough to let me take one of the covers to go over one of the copies I already had.

I like it when special covers have the date of the show on it, even better when I'm actually at the show in question. Notice the HMP, good touch if you're clued up. Any Americans who read this will probably think us Brits are retarded and there's no 13th month, they're the days, it goes small, medium, large. Take back the calendar, we invented the calendar.

I also managed to snag a release cover from the show in Newport the night before, always welcome.

Rot In Hell - Sins Of Malice [Hemlock 13]

2010-08-13T00:09:00.004+01:00

It's becoming increasingly obvious that there was a period of a couple of years where I didn't buy any music on vinyl due to a deadbeat job, my music collection consisted of mp3's and CD's burnt from mates. Not ideal but needs must when the ends don't meet. Nowadays I'm in a shit hot IT job with a disposable income that I could only have dreamed of at 18 years of age. Handsome and rich, well, one of those anyway. One record I didn't get round to ordering was the Rot In Hell demo 7", I copied it off an old friend to have the songs sure, I kick myself for not snapping up a copy of the vinyl when Nate got round to pressing it on wax. Other records I missed out on shall be posted on here when I get round to picking them up at prices up to 5 times the band originally sold them for. Sickening isn't it.

Musically it's Rot In Hell at they're infancy (yeah, I know it's the demo) and I think they work best as a
stripped down clevo worship band, they haven't lost this edge in their more recent material (no pun intended), which is why the current genereation of bands on both sides of the Atlantic look up to and admire their music. The Meanstreak cover is top notch, it's not often I know the cover but this one was bang on target, I was fortunate enough to get given a copy of the Only The Strong 7" from my girlfriend as I was just getting into hardcore. The Clevo side has been good to me ever since, best comp ever? It's definitely up there.

Packaging wise this is superb, hand stamped and numbered disco bag (25/219), spray stencilled b-side and disco bag and screen printed cover which folds like you would fold up a box when you move house. Lots of work went into this, which is why it is worthy of the price tag it's been accruing recently on ebay. On the subject of spraying records, this reminds me of a comical day back in 2003, twas the day Terror played in Canterbury, the first time they played in the UK, Lowest Of The Low had just been pressed on vinyl from Reflections and they hadn't put out any generic samey records with uninspired riffs and boring lyrics. But I digress, The Break In demo had just come back from Ben Phillips on a master disc the night before and we had to get these demos made up ready for the show that evening. So all five of us were tasked with either burning CD's on Anton's lame ass CD drive, spraying the on body art, cutting up the brown paper or spraying the covers. #29 was a 3 story townhouse we all used to live/hang out at, for one day only it was a finely tuned demo making facility, the only problem being that as we were spraying in rooms on the first and second floors there wasn't enough ventilation which made the day a little more fun than usual. All of a sudden Anton and Burrows' impressions of Beyonce and general fucking about were that little bit funnier, turns out we were pretty high on the fumes. Involuntary edge break? Or a bunch of 20 year olds not paying attention to the safety instructions on the car undercoat spray paint bottles? 4 out of 5 members would go with the former, I say it was an accident. SxFxEx

Note to any bands out there today, this is how you put together a decent record, put some fucking effort into it or fuck off.

Take Courage - Black Is The Colour, None Is The Number

2010-08-11T15:20:00.002+01:00

Another one from some local lads, no abbreviations attached to this lot but worth your time regardless. This tape is super limited to 20 copies, I picked one up at a show last week but the band still have them available, maybe the fact that it is recordings from a lineup that is only 50% of the one they are right now, maybe it's because people don't know enough about them? Either way this should have sold out in a day. Recorded earlier this year, this was apparantly meant to be released on 7" bu the band wanted to record new songs with the new lineup so gave this recording the limited release on tape and put the tracks up for free download on mediafire (which you should get now). Musically I'd say they're somewhere between This Is Hell and Raise The White Flag, fast and heavy yet pissed off and punk as fuck. They really impressed me at Hevy fest this past weekend, I definitely see a band with a new lease of life, the next 7" should be killer.

The tape itself is classic Fist In The Air, (I say classic because the SK CD's were sprayed in metric fuck tonne of different colours) it's sprayed with black and copper paint and resembles a plasterers radio if he was also a grafitti artist. No lyrics or anything, you've just got a front cover and a list of the songs, job done. Go order a copy from FITA Records.

Withdrawal / Mellowharsher - Split [Eradicate]

2010-08-11T15:01:00.002+01:00

Got a few cassettes through the post/at shows these past few weeks so I'm going to post about them, I've noticed a lot more bands put out tapes and they're definitely more collectable than CD's. This one is a split between Withdrawal (Canada) and Mellowharsher (California). The bands couldn't be more apart musically, Withdrawal are fast, metallic and brutal holy terror stuff and Mellowharsher is pretty much indie shoegaze stuff. It's a strange mix but one that is welcomed, I knew what Withdrawal were like after hearing their 7" and pretty much got this on the strength of those guys, the Mellowharsher side is real good, something I can imagine replacing bands like Bossk in my library now they're gone.

The tape itself I think is sprayed green, looks like the actual cassette was unscrewed and one half was painted which is a nice touch, the same with the back part of the case. It's on Eradicate Records, never heard of them and can't find anything on trusty google about the label, seems they put out 2 records before this one. Don't know how many were made, I'm sure as always, someone will fill me in. According to the insert Withdrawal are doing a split with Rot In Hell, looks like my Withdrawal and Rot In Hell collection is about to get a little bigger. One of the tracks they put on this tape is from the forthcoming split, nice teaser.

Edit, I like how the color scheme of this tape goes wll with the colour scheme of my blog, I'm in a hippy kinda mood today it would seem.

I'm Staying, I'm Finishing My Coffee

2010-08-04T11:29:00.001+01:00

This one is not records, but my other passion, The Big Lebowski. If you haven't seen it, you can pick it up on DVD for £3 these days, you could do worse than buying yourself a copy and watching it every week. My girlfriend gave me this little package this morning, purely because I am an awesome boyfriend, I think it should have been a birthday present, she gets a little overexcited about trivial dates on the calendar. So the box has everything a Lebowski fan could need:

Coffee mug with Walter and The Dude on it.
A 'Little Lebowki Urban Achievers' certificate, this is getting framed today.
A 'Dude Abides' fridge magnet
A mini book full of quotes, none of which I didn't know, obviously.
'The Dude' bowling patch
A severed toe (with nail polish)
Finally, a rug mousemat to really tie the room together.

I'm off to make me a cup of coffee, watch the movie and tell that Donnie to shut the fuck up.

Yours,

xJeffrey Lebowskix

The Movielife - This Time Next Year [Revelation]

2010-08-01T09:15:00.001+01:00

It's a Sunday, I'm up early and the record player is on! I'm in the mood for some earlys 00's style pop punk today, with this being in my top 5 pop punk/summer records I couldn't resist the 'Life. I picked this piece up at Beachfest in Westgate in 2001. I think I spent way too much on vinyl that day, it was the Ignition distro's fault, I took £100 because I knew there was a shit tonne of bands I liked so logic would suggest the merch on offer would be plentiful, turns out I literally spunked the whole lot on vinyl, the only CD being the Thirty Seconds Until Armageddon demo. That day marked the last time I ever saw Anthem Of The Century and it was my favourite xCanaan set (Gehenna MAde FLesh played in it's entirety plus Last Breath by Hatebreed, crushing).

Regarding Movielife, people tend to prefer the EP and LP that came out after this record, probably because by then they'd signed with Drive Thru and were a buzz band in all the music mags. IT's a weird one, they put out a full length before this, it wasn't the best thing ever, the 7" and the split with ExNumberFive play like demos to the Rev record. What I love most about TTNY (other than Jason Mazzolla from Count Me Out guesting on the third track on side B) is that each side has an opener and ender. It's almost as if you could slap it on the deck without looking at which side you put on and it sounds like the record is starting from the beginning. Cave In's Jupiter record works like this with me too.

I don't know the pressing info on this, I got it just after I read a review for it in Fracture zine (remember that?), so it's first press, out of how many is beyond me. Actually I remember there being a sticker on the plastic wrap saying something about a revelations colour club or some bullshit, I ripped it off in true noob style, so that is lost in a landfill somewhere.

Converge - On My Shield

2010-07-30T16:13:00.001+01:00

I'm no Converge fan, it seems to me that most people who are into hardcore and metal right now regard this band as the best band in the world, I've tried to get into them countless times over the years but something about their music just doesn't sit right with me. Last night they played the Underworld and I was lucky enough to get a cheeky guestlist for the show. My band were playing down the road at the final UK Ruiner gig and I wanted to check out Rot In Hell more than any other band playing at either end of the street. Fortunately enough I was able to check out the RIH set, jib over to the Purple Turtle, bust out our set (which was a banger by the way, new songs and setlist flow smooth as snake shit), then have enough time to hang around outside the Underworld waiting for Converge to strart. Might I add that standing outside of shows is what I do best, the prime example of this was in '04, Mental played London at The Verge. That place is now a trendy wine bar, formerly home to an almost weekly hardcore alldayer on a sunday, anyways, I had made the trip up with no intention of paying in, I just chilled to the max outside, got some food and had than if I had actually watched the bands. I saw Mental the day before in CT, that could have been the last Jube show, I'm not sure, but I know I saw at least some of their set, I can't confirm or deny if I spent most of that evening chilling out of The Break In van.

Back to Converge, I'm willing to give them another go, seeing as anything they put out on vinyl instantly becomes internet gold dust, I'm not about to purchase a $60 copy of one of their LP's only to not like it. So I did the next best thing, bought a £5 7" with one track on it. This thing is limited to 1000 copies for their Euro tour, only to be sold on the tour and I am informed that they strictly took 50 copies of the record into each gig so as to not sell out of them too early. It's not the worst song I've heard, but I still don't get it, for me I prefer this kind of stuff when it's played by band like Botch or Cave In. The B-side has this cool etching on it, which is weird as I receive my Integrity VVe Are The End 7" the morning I bought the Converge record. So that's my first two laser etched 7"s both received on the same day, what are the chances of that happening eh? I'm going to go on record as saying this is one of my favourite pieces of wax, on a purely visual level. The way the etching shows through from the front makes it look really special and not in the kind of way where you had a special kid in year 3 of school who used to eat chalk.

The other cool thing is the label is actually part of the front cover as the front of the record cover has a circle cut out of it. Converge: better looking records than they sound? For me, yes.

Integrity - VVe Are The End [Magic Bullet]

2010-07-29T13:48:00.006+01:00

I was waiting to get this for a little while now, by that I mean it has been about 3 weeks since I ordered it, which is nothing really. This is the new 2 track 7" from Integrity (I say 2 track, it's more of a duo of songs melded to one, or one song with two names, take your pick), I don't know much about where the songs are from, I'm assuming they were recorded on or around the same time frame they recorded The Blackest Curse, or possibly after, I'm no expert. I picked this up from the Holy Terror store after I got wind that there was going to be 30 copies of the pink vinyl going on there which are kept aside because the other 70 were being sold at the Integrity show in Anaheim on 7.17. These are all individually numbered and have a wax seal, also Dwid signed the back of the cover. It's one of those records that are just a 7x7" sheet of card, no fold or anything, artwork has pretty much everything you could expect from a pastiche Integ cover: process logo x about 50, Robert DeGrimston, Anton LaVey, a few Manson girls, Charlie Manson, the goat of Mendes, some arabic(?) text and a bunch of other symbols. I fucking love it, I've been sitting here checking out all of the pictures in the background while spinning the record and had to play it twice before I'd studied the whole thing. Did I mention it was super detailed?

The wax seal has Dwid's face drawing on it, the one from dwidhellion.com, I got #9.

The pink record has a few tiny specks of grey spotted around it, probably only 5 or 6, I'm guessing this is left overs on the plates from the run of 100 grey records that Magic Bullet were selling on pre-orders with a limited shirt. I didn't order one, stupidly I opted out because they didn't have my size shirt left, what I should've done was order it anyway and flog off the shirt, silly me.

This is the icing on the cake right here though, the b-side is blank, both tracks fit on the a-side, so on the back there is the Integ skull laser etched instead. I've seen b-sides have scratched designs, Hope Con's File .03 has the skull bomb scratched on it. This is very clean and more like what the apple logo looks like on the back of an iPhone.

Yeah those are Jack Skellington coasters from the Disney store, what of it?

xDisciplex A.D. - Heaven And Hell [Facedown]

2010-07-28T18:11:00.001+01:00

I'm still catching up with the records I've been receiving over the past month or so, this one I got in a nice little trade for a Danzig drug free shirt that I haven't been able to fit into since 2005, cheers for this Boardy. This record came from the same press as the white LP I picked up from a guy on ebay for less than three quid earlier in the year, according to discogs.com this is out of 400, the most common, but only by 50. I was fine just owning one copy of this, I can stomach that, I have one copy of the No Blood, No Altar Now LP and I haven't got a sick compulsion to collect every variant of that, but now I have two out of the three colours of Heaven And Hell I'm going to have to find the missing one from the set now aren't I.

Total pressing info:

250 x white vinyl

350 x clear vinyl

400 x red vinyl

I've already got a Shockwave obsession, I've always been a big fan of Disciple but never really had much of their stuff on vinyl, I feel another collection brewing in me. "To the bitter end I will survive."

Cold Snap - Bad Moon Rising [Dead & Gone/CTW]

2010-07-27T21:45:00.008+01:00

Dead and Gone, what a label. They've been around for ten years, put out records by Justice, On Thin Ice, Iron Age, Betrayed, Deal With It and the best one being The Break In, obviously. This is D&G #39 which is also their swan song, I'm pleased to say it's a band from my neck of the woods. Cold Snap have put out a few records now, if memory serves they did a demo CDR, then the Glacies Incarnate 10" on Southern Rise and the split 7" with Cornered on CTW. I've got all of those so far, but I didn't pick up all the variants until now. They've impressed me more and more each time I see them, more so since Jamie joined, that kid seems to make any band step up their game when he steps in, just look at how much On Thin Ice improved. The 4 tracks on this 7" are definitely the best they've done so far, word is a full length is being worked on now, you won't be able to believe that. This record came on 3 colour variants, the pressing info on the D&G store conflicts with the CTW one (they co-released this), so I'm going with the D&G numbers. The name of the 7" is "Bad Moon Rising," now looking over the lyrics, which aren't typical hardcore fare and bloody good, I can see why the name was picked but I still think it is both weak and Creedence-esque. Every time I hear those three words out loud I get the Creedence song in my head for an hour, which is good because I get a sweet song in my head and bad because this is Cold Snap and I should be humming crushing breakdown riffs.

The colour records are out of 150, I'm sticking by this view at the moment of me not being much of a fan of the splatter records, this one is a little different, it's three different colour splats on clear vinyl, which is kinda cool but I'd much prefer to see one of the variants as a good old single colour. UK bands take note, this is what I want.

The other colour variant is described by the band as black with a yellow centre, this I can stomach, looks kind of cool, almost like it's the first record to be pressed after the yellow run has finished and they haven't cleaned the plates. The yellow is actually alot brighter than the photo, without the flash on it looks washed out. Would have liked for one of these to be rarer than the other, as it stands I'm sitting on a collection where each one is equal in number, how do I know which one is cooler to have?

Black is out of 200, so only 50 more than each of the colour records, I don't know if they made any tour covers for their euro/UK tour, if they did I'll kick myself for going to see Stewart Lee live last night instead of standing at the front and not moshing (I only mosh to Integrity, covers of old UK bands that no-one knows anymore and Shockwave).

Breaking Point / Wiretap! - Split [Purgatory]

2010-07-27T21:42:00.001+01:00

Purgatory are making a name for themselves, they've put out a few records this year, I've got a couple of them, this is the newest addition. Breaking Point are from the south of England, Wiretap are from South Wales. I've not heard much of Wiretap before, I have the demo which was available for free to download and I caught them in Birmingham when Santa Karla hopped on a show last summer, but they've always kind of passed me by as a band that isn't really aimed at me. Listening to these tracks they're tightening up their sound a lot more, I suck at comparing bands to other bands so I'm not going to bother, it's not at all bad though. Breaking Point's side was a surprise, Louis is going for the kind of Cro Mags gruff melodic vocals these days, peppering a bit of that here and there throughout the two tracks (intro, doesn't count as a track) and The Mayes does a guest spot, his voice really stands out and adds to the track, normally guest spots kind of blend in or don't work at all. Nice one.

Enough about the music, I'm doing that too much, I'm writing about the records. We've got two variants here, I don't think there was a black record so it's this gaudy puke colour splatter effect first, it makes me feel ill to look at it which I think is amazing, good work on making it look rank Saker. The photo doesn't show how ghastly it looks, the yellow is quite vibrant while the green is akin to the paint colour putrid green you used to be able to get from Games Workshop.

I'm taking an educated guess that each band chose a colour to go with, fair's fair and that. This one is a grey and white mix, this is more tasteful than the splatter effect and I think if bands decide to go with something other than the one colour, this is my preference. It goes with the artwork, which is both a blessing and a curse. It looks nice and fits with the tone, but lacks the balls to be a different colour completely, but I guess the sutrid eye rape of a splatter record covers that. Good work.

I hear there is a record release cover being worked on for the Bitter End show in CT on August 13th, I'll be there, my band is playing actually, so that'll be another copy of the record for the collection. I'm hoping for a rip of a classic HC record, I'll probably get a quick photoshop knock up they did the night before and photocopied up the corner shop, prove me wrong.

Lovewolves - A True Discourse & Ark Of The Covenant - S/T [TDON]

2010-07-27T21:37:00.001+01:00

A month or two back TDON put up a duo of pre-orders, now seeing as I own every piece of vinyl they've put out bar the Azriel 12" and the Last Witness 7" (I'll pick up the LW one at some point), I thought I'd spring for the x3 deals of both. It helps that I like both the bands too. There was 500 copies of each bands record pressed, 100 on black, limited to the x3 package and two sets of 200 on different colours. It's good to see Lonewolves getting a vinyl release, I think Carcaroth would have been great on wax too, shame it wasn't released on it at the time. Ark Of The Covenant is pure 90's Goodlife metal, definitely the best band Darke's been involved with, the music suits his vocal style to the ground, good riffs, good breakdowns. Both of these records look like they could have benefitted from having a big hole on them, I think Lonewolves even had the artwork take that into account as the labels have a large white circle on them, maybe it cost too much, maybe I'm mistaken.

No catalogue number again, I'm pretty sure Jamie has sworn off these now, shame as I like knowing which records came out before others. On a related note I've noticed the last few Purgatory and CTW releases have omitted the catalogue number, maybe I've got too much love for them, maybe I'm old fashioned. I mean I still think you shouldn't wear the shirt of a band that's paying a show and you should wait two years after a band splits up before covering one of their songs.

Black vinyl, out of 100 each

Colour vinyl, out of 200 each:
Ark:

Lonewolves:

This next one is pretty special, it's black with clear red splatter, now since clear red is a weak colour, 40k painters will know what I mean, it doesn't show up when put over or in darker colours.

Here's a picture of it up against the light, I've got a Rot In Hell 12" with white splatter on black but this is the first one I've seen with a clear colour used with the black.

Age Of Kali - Demo '06 [Rat Patrol]

2010-07-25T23:51:00.001+01:00

Just a quick one, picked this up from Jesse Bad Aids when he was offloading his entire hardcore collection after dropping out, I didn't do a pre-order for the record due to me being on minimum wage and living with a retard. I only had the standard black version (with insert). Something always niggled at me to pick up the clear version but I never really looked out for it, so when it became available to me literally on a plate I had to take advantage. Such a shame this band didn't finish recording their next record, but as they never released anything else I guess the riffs were fair game, Cold Snap can do what they want with them eh? The spontaneity of the song writing for this is admirable, the whole thing was written and recorded in one evening, bar the vocals, I'd love to do that, maybe my next band we'll do something on the fly like that, one day, one day. There is some choice lines in the lyrics about annoying trends which are still relevant today, but I'll let you seek it out for yourself, it's worth it, maybe someone has the mp3's they could upload and I'll put them here.

Anyway, enough of the music, on to the record itself, this is the pre order sleeve, Ugly Kid Joe homage with UKJ lyrics on the back. Clear vinyl, number 62/100 (damn this was '06? Seems like yesterday it came out). I love how the labels have nothing to do with the standard artwork, they say Thamthon monster of cats, I always meant to ask one of them about this but always forget, maybe now I've put it on here it'll remind me to ask. The black should be easy enough to pick up on ebay, treat yourself, oh I forgot to mention, members of this band went on to be in Cold Snap and Rot In Hell, well the recording members did, they had a different drummer for a few shows, I think Jason Frye even busted out the drums to a Cold World cover once. Great dane.

4 for 4

2010-07-25T19:29:00.001+01:00

I've got a stack of new records sitting next to the couch at the moment, the past 6 weeks I've spent way too much of my money on vinyl and it's started to be drip fed to me by the lovely mailman who comes to my office, not the retard who does the rounds to my house, records don't get delivered there anymore after he left my Wayfarer LP out in the rain. Anyway, A389 being the brilliant label they are, did a pre-order package a few months back which I ordered to get Integrity's To Die For 10" on red as I slept on the blue press, but I'll get to that in a moment. The package included 4 records, 2 7"s, a 10" and this 12" from Caulfield:

I'd never heard the band before but seeing as you get a more limited variant of one record and a bonus 7" I thought it'd be rude not to. Boy was I right to order the whole package, the first thing I noticed was that the LP sleeve was hand made, we're talking black marker on the folds to mark out where to cut and screen printed front/back too. My copy has a little white ink smudged on the front, I don't think this is intentional but it adds to the DIY feel of the package. The insert is also pretty cool, photocopied with thick card on the outside and biblical demon images inside along with the lyrics. I've been listening to this quite a bit on vinyl and mp3 due to the download card included and I'm really into it, it's crusty, doomy and right up my street, can't wait to see what they come up with next.

One thing I dig with A389 releases is that the label artwork is more often than not always the same template, the colours change and the bands logo is always different but other than that it never often differs. Brings to mind memories of looking through my Mum's 7" box when I was growing up, all her records had the holes punched out as she'd inhereted them from the jukebox in my Grandad's pub, most of those always had a generic label. More hardcore labels should do this, too many bands are trying to put labels on the vinyl that goes with the main artwork, but fuck it, have a generic template for the record label and fall in line with the rest of the roster, into it.

Next is the record which swayed me to go all out for the package rather than order To Die For separately, this Pale Creation 7" is only available on red vinyl in the deal. Pale Creation are kind of underrated in the genre right now, their full length Twilight Haunt is up there with Integrity's Those Who Fear Tomorrow and shows all the signs of being a hardcore masterpiece. The tracks on this 7" are new if I recall, VVake Of Temptation has Nick Fiction busting out some clean vocals which normally I would cringe at if any other band of this genre would do, but it works, the tracks here could easily have come from the full length, I hope they put out another record soon.

Let's get on to the record shall we? Artwork comes courtesy of Stephen Kasner, a legend in himself, would certainly love to have him do some artwork for my band, if we ever put out more than one record every 18 months. The vinyl is red, but opaque, I think every red record I own is clear so this is refreshing, almost a maroon colour when seen in the flesh, notice the generic label again. Standard.

The next record is a bonus for the deal, split 7" from Integrity and Pale Creation. I didn't own any PC wax until this package arrived, now I own 2, brilliant. No generic labels here, but I'm assuming as it's a bonus record it can be let off, also there is no text on the sleeve to tell you what bands it is so the labels are your only info here.

Now this record I could have got on the original press when they did a run on blue vinyl with alternate blue artwork but I'm not one to chase buzz records on ebay. So when it was announced it would gt a second press on a different colour with new artwork I was very interested. This time we have Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme on the cover, another one of the Manson girls (the blue version had Sandra Good on it, I think I preferred that one actually, a little more sinister). No text on the front or back, the same image is reversed on the back too. The only text on the artwork is on the spine.

The insert shows both the girls, the blue version showed them with their jugs out, this one they look like a chipmunk and Linda Blair from the Exorcist.

The only infor about the record is on the label, you can just about see it in this photo, the B-side has the skull in the same colours. To Die For was the first Integrity record I got back in '03, I hadn't heard them before this other than the Only The Strong comp 7", I honestly think it's a banger, everything just gelled really well on this record, they weren't experimenting with the Sam Hain/Danzig vibe or anything nu metal, it was jus pure old school Integrity. I later found out it was put together form old In Cold Blood riffs which kinda sucks, but I still love it.

If It Bleeds, We Can Kill It

2010-07-10T14:53:00.000+01:00

Saw Predators the other night, enjoyed it, took away the bad taste of AVP 1 & 2 for sure. Two words: Danny Trejo. This dude is a 23%er, any film he appears in is instantly made better by 23%. That is all.

Integrity - The Blackest Curse [Deathwish]

2010-06-21T13:57:00.002+01:00

I haven't got many records in the mail recently, everything I ordered over the past couple of months has mostly been pre-orders so I'm now waiting on almost 20 records and I just ordered anothe 5 in the A389 pre-order, but it's no big deal, something to look forward to eh? Today was the first in the long line and the one I've been looking forward to most, I've held off downloading it from the blogspots and haven't listened to it anywhere else online as I wanted to bust it out on vinyl, it's on as I type this and I'm very into it, but this isn't a review, I'll leave that to Nate. There'll be plenty of people posting on their blogs and tumblrs about this so I know I'm not doing anything too original here, it's more of a way to catalogue what I've bought and a way of keeping track on how I waster my money.

I saw Deathwish Inc had put the pre-orders up on evening when I was doing a Pacific session with the lads, iPhone in hand I set about compiling an order for one of these but with shipping it wasn't worthwhile for just the one, so I threw in for 3, not knowing any of the pressing info at all. Turns out that was the magic number as that was the number of variants Deathwish had on offer, but they didn't release the pressing info until a few weeks ago. I know there'll be some limited copies knocking around and possibly even a band only press so I'll keep an eye out for that in the future.

Artwork wise we're talking super minimalist, I don't know exactly what the image is from but that is pretty much all you get, there is the skull on the front in invisible ink and the song titles on the back also in invisible ink, looks nice but can't get it to show up with my shitty camera. No liner notes, band members or thanks list, lyrics are notably absent too, looks like I'll be getting them on the internet then. That's the only thing I'd change is to have the lyrics, but it's Integrity and they're not known for putting the lyrics in their records.

Record colours are very tastefully selected, I'm a fan of one colour records, clear or opaque, half and half/tri colour is good too. It's not that I don't like splatter/marble, it can be very effective but keep the amount of colours used to a minimum, having 3 different colours splatted on a white background just gets mixed up and looks like an artists mixing palate. I don't know, I think it's the cool thing to do, maybe once a band has put out their first 7" they'll get the kooky records out of their system and they can put a full length out on a good old white LP.

Red out of 300

White out of 700

Clear out of 1000 (this came with a sticker for this record and the Starkweather one)

Side A

Side B

Insert (this'll get framed soon methinks)

Also I've not had an update in a while but I thought this was a good post to put this in, screen printed poster from the London show on May 29th. Thing cost me a tenner, but it's a decent size poster and on nice thick paper. Mine didn't have a rectangle ripped out of it like some other people I know, must have been a bunch of stoners hanging by the merch desk then. This was my first time seing Integrity live, I missed out on them in '03, I think we were playing shows on most of the gigs I would have been able to get to, and I missed them on the Converge tour, but I hear it wasn't too great on those shows. They played a greatest hits set, nothing written after 1999 which is slightly disappointing, but I can understand that, Taste My Sin wouldn't have gone a miss though. Rot In Hell and Never Again played, I missed half of NxA's set but they got the reaction of the night, blew me away, RIH should be whipping up a shitstorm in the pit when they play but it didn't happen, a great shame as they were tight as fuck and have Charlie Manson on guitar, best band in the UK right now, believe.

Look To Yourself To Make The Change

2010-05-30T21:37:00.000+01:00

The Break In - No Fate But What We Make [Burial Records 004]

I thought I'd do a post on one of my old bands, in particular the first band to put out something on vinyl, The Break In. I joined in 2003 after they had played about 5 shows with Hannah doing vocals, Myself and Scott White stepped in after she and Alan left the band. It took about 10 shows up and down the country after touring with November Coming Fire and The Last Chance for us to click with the crowd, the sow that happened at was Himsa/NCF/Love That Kills in Canterbury. We rolled on in our Spy Kids 3D specs and busted out (The Break) Intro for the first time, intending to write a full blown song out of it, but after the reaction we got to the 60 second outburst of mosh we decided to leave it as it was. The demo had been out for a couple of months and we had a few songs left to record from that particular session of songwriting, so we approached Troy and McKee of Londons Burial Records about doing a 5 track 7" incorporating the 3 demo tracks with a couple more tracks sandwiched between those songs before we dropped our MCD on Dead & Gone. They were into the idea so we got shit moving. We popped out 2 tracks with Ben Phillips over at City Of Dis and at the same time tweaked the demo with new bass and a few extra guitar bits, gang vocals were fleshed out with a new take and Burrows did another guest spot (Oooooh shit!).

It was 2003 and excitement over a third Terminator movie was at boiling point, the title of this record was born out of the line from T2 "There is no fate but what we make for ourselves." Nate actually suggested the title, cheers for that one. Artwork wise we got Sketchy Adam (@xchandlerx79 on twitter) to do the fron/back and it came out just as we envisioned it, unfortunately the pressing was done on a glued card sleeve rather than a fold out insert jobby so the band name on the spine didn't quite work out, no big deal though. There was 100 copies done for pre-orders on white vinyl and 400 on black. Each was stamped with an x/rose on the A side and the Burial logo on the B side, black ink for the white, red for the black. One mistake which I accept responsability for is I should have gotten the large hole 7"s, but I didn't tell the Burial guys about it until it was too late.

We did a euro tour cover for the Internal Affairs tour in '04 but I didn't keep one of those, all I have is the white, black and a test (one of 10). We raffled one of these off at a Verge all dayer in London, Billy Caliber ended up with one. I have no idea if Burial have any copies left, rumour has it that Daniel Frye has one or two of these leftover with the odd shirt from that era, mostly this comes up on ebay now and again on black and goes for 99p so kep them peeled.

It's worth mentioning, as I enter my 9th year straight edge, that I'm the only one of this lineup still sXe, as the lyrics to the final track suggest "straight edge, it's strong within our hearts, and it's growing stronger every day."
Download the full record here

Not while the ink still stains these fists.

The inserts to the records were photocopied, forward thinking may or may not have predicted the lyrics wouldn't show up on a white background though.

White (/100)

Black (/400)

Test press (/10)

Stamping the labels was very labourious, mainly because the slightly gloss record bags didn't let the ink dry so Troy's flat was literally full of records on the floor in every room.

So yeah I'm missing the Euro cover but I think Mr Frye has a spare one for me.

Eye Of Thundera, Give Me Sight Beyond Sight

2010-05-25T20:31:00.000+01:00

Seraphim and Virgin With are two bands I've gotten into by reccomendations from friends and I'm very grateful my eyes have been opened to these bands. I buy records from bands I like that I've checked out previously on MP3 format and some money left over in my paypal account left over from recycling old phones allowed me to order these when I got a couple of others from Free Cake Records.

This Virgin Witch record I thought was going to come on black but turns out it was on grey with a screen printed B-side. I've said it before but touches like this are what make vinyl truly the best music format. The cover is also silver screen printed, you've got to love that screen print smell, it's art school nostalgia.

Songs For Burning Lovers

2010-05-25T20:19:00.001+01:00

Burning Love - Don't Ever Change b/w Jack The Ripper [Deranged]

I've got a lttle love affair going on with Burning Love, I knew they'd be awesome as their vocalist Chris has a solid back catalogue but when Santa Karla played with them back in December '09 they blew my mind. So damn tight and powerful on stage, I ordered all the colours of the demo 7" on TDON prior to that show, I'm up to 9 pieces of wax right now. This 7" is a sampler for their new LP on Deranged Records out of Canada entitled 'Songs For Burning Lovers' with a B-side of a Nick Cave song. It's on regular black and a blue/white mix, the labels for each colour are different colour variations also which is a little different as the only colour change is normally the vinyl itself. Good touch lads. Really looing forward to the full length even more now.

http://www.derangedrecords.com/

Got A Number Thirteen Tattooed On My Neck

2010-05-25T20:08:00.000+01:00

Withdrawal - Unknown Misery

Withdrawal are tight, Canadian holy terror. I ordered this from the band a while back and threw in for a shirt at the same time to make the postage worth my while, I got a mail from Adam in the band saying they ran out of my size, it's happened to me with my band on more than one occasion so I was willing to wait for the next batch. I also got chatting to him about a bunch of random shit, turns out we;re both not complete douchebags and are actually nice dudes. Fast forward to this week and after an email letting me know they found my shirt in my size I received the 7" along with a short story by Adam with a little note apologising for the delay, all I can say is the record is well worth waiting for, the artwork is stellar, music heavy as sin and there's the obligatory Process logo on the record label. Seek this out if you dare.

Yo Listen Up, This Is Another Lockin Out Exlusive...

2010-05-25T19:56:00.000+01:00

The Wrong Side - Dumptruck Demo [Trip Machine Laboratories]

I posted a week or so about The Wrong Side, before I scored that LP I put a pre-order in for the Dumptruck demo, it was one of those whee you order so long before it comes out you forget it's coming until it slips in through the old letterbox. I didn't go all out and get the black wax too but managed to score one of the 150 on clear green. It's the Dumptruck demo on side A and a live set on side B.

I got number 85, makes a change to get something limited, good to see a label stamping their records and individually numbering pre-orders. Delivery came with a bunch of stickers too, standard.

The Ignorance Bleeds

2010-05-18T12:08:00.000+01:00

My band has a new record coming out.

Everyone Knows Your Name, Nobody Knows Your Face

2010-05-18T12:00:00.001+01:00

The Wrong Side - Of The Grave (Lockin' Out)
So back in '03/'04 I was hanging out with some crucial dudes outta Leeds, one of them reccommended me this band Dumptruck who that year had hijacked the end of Mental's set at Posi Numbers fest and played their demo, I was curious to check it out. Couldn't pick up the demo tape as this was on Lockin' Out Records and as we all know, everything that label put out in the early/mid 00's sold out quicker than a new mysterious Integrity pre-order. So I soulseeked it, we all do it, so don't act like you're shocked. It's 4 tracks, dancy as fuck and I loved it. They changed their name to The Wrong Side and like a chump I was broke at the time, working a shitty minimum wage job that didn't give me full time hours and I barely had enough money to make rent let alone bills. Boo hoo, so I didn't snag this on vinyl either, my loss, but I did still pick it up from Soulseek.

This brings me to last month, when I snag another LP off Simpson. I've never actually perused the artwork before so it was good to see what sort of asthetic they were going for, I've been listening to it again recently and I still remember all the words and it makes me mosh in my front room, I think this and the first Righteous Jams LP are some of my favourites in this genre of the 00's. Stoked I've got it on vinyl.

He Goat Appears

2010-05-08T00:32:00.000+01:00

CURSED - I [Deathwish]
Time for a post about records. When I learned that my man
Simpson was moving away to a dockside town and flogging off his whole collection (minus the No Warning. Obviously), I was straight on that shit. Sure there are a few other gems I'd like to take of his hands but what's a brother gonna do? I gotta eat. Anyway, I've been into this Cursed band since they put the first record out on Deathwish and I've enjoyed them enough to listen to them on my ipod on copied files I borrowed from friends but for some reason never purchased anything on vinyl. Why you might ask? I don't honestly know, maybe it was the shipping costs from the states, maybe I just didn't want to pick up the most common colour. For whatever reason I fail. This is the most common colour, it's your standard white affair, nothing special, but I like a nice white 12" (yeah, yeah), it looks very clean and goes with any style of artwork. On the subject of artwork, take note people, this is a perfect example in the effectiveness of simplicity. It's simple, intricate and dare I say beautiful in it's design, but also they took the time to include full lyrics, no band should omit this detail, the lyrics are the soul of the band, especially in a genre where words can get lost, the lyrics sheet draws a listener into the record, and with a lyricist like Colohan on board you are in for a treat. More posts on my Simpson goldmine soon.

Cancelations And Expectations

2010-04-21T19:24:00.000+01:00

I kind of knew the volcano ash from Iceland would stop Sunny and Saves The Day from coming over and this morning I woke up to confirmation of the fact. It's been rescheduled for May 31st but who knows if STD will be on the bill. Gives me time to save up for the double LP represses of Diary and LP2 then eh.

Live music wise the shows that I'm looking forward to over the next couple of months are pretty much limited to both May bank holidays. May 1st Santa Karla are playing Brussels with Oathbreaker, Daggers and Narrows. I'm beyond excited about this, three bands I'm digging more and more every day and it'll be the 4th time we've played with Oathbreaker, that band destroy it live.

The other show is technically two but they're on the same day, it's Dirty Money's final show at the Underworld in London with plenty of cool bands including Cold Snap and The Down & Outs, it's been way too long since I caught The Outs live. Add to that the fact that Rot In Hell and *&*^%!$£ are playing the Old Blue Last in Shoreditch at midnight and you've got one hell of a day. The Rot In Hell show is rumoured (and I mean rumoured) to be a release show, fingers crossed the RIH split 7" is available then, I've got the pre-order on lock down but a release show version would be a nice touch. One day of awesome hangouts with a whole bunch of people I haven't seen for bloody ages.

My band is in the process of sorting out a very nice little record too, people don; dig on us in a buzz kind of way but we do alright for a bunch of dudes careering into their 30's playing metal in a hardcore band. All I'll say is the word vinyl and split.

Tonight I will redefine everything and tomorrow I will start in on my better days

2010-04-20T19:06:00.001+01:00

Saves The Day - Can't Slow Down [Equal Vision]

I could write out this albums lyrics from beginning to end without listening along to the songs, I know them that well. It's their best album by far, yeah it rips Lifetime off but if you're going to rip one band off in a melodic hardcore (yeah I didn't say pop punk) band then they're the band to steal from. I listened to this record way too much in the early 00's along with the second record and acoustic EP. I'm posting about this because this week I'm seeing them play with Sunny Day Real Estate in London, it'll be the fourth time I've seen them play (first for SDRE obviously) and the first time since 2003, shit has it been that long? Well, it might not even happen seeing as the ash from the shitty volcano in Iceland might stop both bands from getting to the UK on the plane so fingers crossed eh.

The record I've got is the press Equal Vision did when Vagrant snapped the band up in 2000, they repressed Through Being Cool and all the Converge records too as they'd just signed with Epitaph. The red LP is limited to 300 from what I can see, it's not an oiginal press but it's a pride and joy to listen to nonetheless.

The Promise

2010-04-09T09:56:00.000+01:00

RINGWORM - The Promise [A389]

Deathwish reissued this 1993 classic on it's 10th anniversary with a whole bunch of demo ad live tracks, new artwork and a nice package it was too. No vinyl though. Step in A389 then, gatefold, original artwork and if you pre-ordered this beast you got the demo on 7" too. I didn't, but shipping from the states is always a stinger so I couldn't commit at the time. Wish I did though. There was also a limited edition that came with a zine, again I didn't spring for that sadly.

You can't deny the impact this album had on the whole hardcore scene, coupled with Earth Crisis and Integrity these guys helped to fashion the heavier side of hardcore in the 90's, also The Promise took their name from this record, obviously.

Just go order it from A389, or from a distro/record store, it is insanely good.

Against The Current

2010-04-07T11:13:00.000+01:00

EARTH CRISIS - To The Death (Century Media)

Earth Crisis. Now there's a band. Like Integrity they have a solid back catalogue bar one or two records. They reformed a little while back now and this new record "To The Death" has been out for a while too. I did a cheeky download of it when it was released and never really gave it any attention. I blasted it in the van with the lads recently and it is a corker. Production wise (courtesy of Tue Madsen) it's very thick and overproduced, but this plays well to ExC's sound perfectly. You've got songs about the amount of casualties the drug dealers cause through gang shootings and the drugs they actually deal, songs about drunk drivers and vegan til death. Classic Crisis. Karl's vocals sound even better on this record, when I first heard them I thought he sounded like a barking dog, certainly one of the most recognisable voices in hardcore.

In related news, I hear the drummer from Fallout Boy is filling in on their current tour, fair play for still being vegain sXe mate.

Six Million Ways To Die But You Can't Choose One It Chooses You

2010-04-07T09:15:00.001+01:00

COLD WORLD - Dedicated To Babies Who Came Feet First (Deathwish)

Last time I went to Belgium with the band we played Antwerp, yeah it was with xArmed For Battlex but that is inconsequential, because there was a sweet distro there where I spent over 60 euros on vinyl. I'll be putting those up if I ever catch up with the new shit I've been purchasing.

Anyway, we went to Belgium again this weekend and the second show was in Roselare (sp?) in the H8000 area. I walked into the venue, it was a matinee show with Worms Feed and Sundowning, and beside the stage was the ame distro from Antwerp. I instantly got both excited and scared, this is because I really wanted to pick up some new records, but I only have 50 euros that I swore was for emergencies like food etc as I've got enough records to listen to at home. Well as everyone knows, you can never have enough records and this is what I picked up.

I didn't get Cold World at first, back in 2003 I think it was, Sandwiches played the EP to me and I shrugged it off as rubbish. It didn't take long for me to realise I was totally wrong, they mis ?Hip Hop with Hardcore and are just spot on with their samples. Ice Grillz was a banger, it took a while for the follow up to come out on Deathwish and when it did I snapped the CD up in HMV, always meant to pick up the LP and sell on the CD version but never saw it on a distro and ordering direct from DW or even Reflections (works out dearer from the Netherlands, go figure) was expensive.

The artwork doesn't have all of the band on it like the CD, the pictures of them looking like a Gap ad, but I like the style of the art, just photos of random weird looking old men and kids, brilliant. Vinyl is solid white, always a good thing. Listened to this yesterday, forgot just how much I love it. Recommended.

Running out of space...

2010-04-05T15:29:00.000+01:00

Yeah so I've actually run out of space in my two 7" boxes (shoe boxes)and i need to get either a third box or something entirely different to store them in. I'm going to start looking around but I also need something for my LP's, I'd rather have a cool box to flip through them rather than have them side on.

Hmm.

She's Got To Go

2010-03-28T09:58:00.002+01:00

Lifetime, I bought their "Hello Bastards" CD at the first hardcore show I went to back in 2000. I'd heard they were the band that influenced Saves The Day and I'd heard a bunch of songs from that band from people playing their records at parties and shit, so I couldn't pass up the band that gave them their sound could I? Suffice to say it was a classic record and my love affair with Lifetime had been started.

Fast forward to 2006 and Lifetime had reformed, recorded a new full length and were coming over to the UK in October for 3 shows (2 of which I attended and sang my bloody heart out at). Decaydance were tasked with releasing this new Lifetime record, simply self titled, but I didn't buy it on CD, just a cheeky download with the knowledge my LP order weas in the post so I'd have the lyrics etc when it turns up. It comes through my door and guess what? No lyrics sheet, cheers Pete Wentz. So since then I've been reduced to lyrics websites to decipher Ari Katz' distorted ramblings.

A few weeks back I found out that No Idea Records were repressing their last 3 full lengths on colour vinyl. This excited me, more for the lyrcs insert than anything. So I snapped up the s/t LP with plans to order "Jersey's Best Dancers" and "Hello Bastards" at another time. Really I should have ordered all 3 at the same time as they're only $8 each and shipping would work out cheaper in bulk, oh well, nice colour vinyl though.

If a band reforms they usually just do it for a farewell tour and in the case olf old sxe bands they sound deflated and old, but Lifetime felt like they never split, everything about them live and on the new record is pure late 90's emotional hardcore. I now own two copies on two different labels, the colour hue of the cover art is slightly different on each version, I think I prefer the original ink but it's nothing drastic between the two. People should get hold of this record, according to my last.fm it's my most listened record of all time!

My Walls Surround Me Now

2010-03-27T21:19:00.000Z

Integrity. I love this band, but it has to be said I don't own much of their shit on vinyl. Save for the odd compilation or split record the main albums/EP's are either long out of print or hard to get hold of and go for a shit tonne on ebay.

Crime Scene records are starting off re-releasing all their out of print records starting with 1990's In Contrast Of Sin. Over the course of the year they will be releasing "Those Who Fear Tomorrow", "Systems Overload", "Humanity is the Devil", and "Seasons in the Size of Days." Cannot wait, if they all get the same attention as this it'll be a nice little collection.

This record is less brooding and evil than their later 90's efforts but the seed is securely planted making this an excellent bridge record between the '88 old school sound and the 90's metalcore that Earth Crisis and Integ would carve for themselves.

The package here is phenomenal. Stephen Kasner silver on black screenprinted pre-order cover reinterpreting the original art, hand stamped record bag, fold out insert and the non-preorder colour has an Integ sticker on the plastic bag. Oh and the limited cover was 208/320. Tight.

"Live In Sin, Fight To Win"

2010-03-25T14:14:00.001Z

The riffs. My god this record brings the riffs. I loved Hellmouth when that dropped, listened to it constantly, while it's a solid release, I couldn't help thinking it was a little under-developed. It's no way a bad thing, I mean this is hardcore and nothing is new under the sun but when a song is literally note for note a rip off of Integrity's 'Vocal Test' it's noticeable.

Into Oblivion is a band in their prime, both writing/recording wise and live. R&F around this period smashed it so hard. Now I get to finally own the record on vinyl. I'm pleased Deathwish pressed this as my CD has been sitting in a cupboard since I ripped it for my ipod just after getting it so now I'll get a chance to give the artwork my full attention.

I'm not a big fan of Bannon's aartwork, he seems to just churns out the same covers with different main images. But Into Oblivion is just so striking, definitely a favourite of his, there are the trademark splatters but the idea of Jesus' skull with the crown of thorns is a good one, the insert on this record is literally a copy of the CD version but 12" size, opening out to be three wide, to be honest I'd like to frame this, there's only text on the bottom third of the last square, I'd get away with that.

"We're All Guilty Fucking Pigs"

2010-03-25T14:10:00.000Z

As far as I'm aware, this record didn't get pressed on vinyl when it first came out. I didn't pick the CD up but did a cheeky rip from a mate, seriously for the last 4 years I've not bothered with CD's, mp3's and vinyl are my shit.

Anyway, it's the best Hope Con record so far in my opinion, some people say 'Endnote' is better, but this is more experimental and gets my vote. Deathwish always do a nice job with their colourways on the wax, the quality of the card for the actual cover is real high too, none of that flimsy recycled card here. Artwork kills it, actually it's probably up their in my top ten all time favourite record covers.

"Through Prides Eyes I See Your Downfall"

2010-03-25T05:13:00.000Z

The third bargain I bagged was xDisciplex A.D.'s 'Heaven & Hell' record on white vinyl courtesy of Facedown records.

I love Disciple and this record is a banger but I can't help thinking Dan Quiggles voice was either under strain from a sore throat on the recording or he was trying to change from the more visceral growl of the earlier stuff to the style he had on 'The Revelation' LP and the final 7". Either way it's still a good record, plenty or Lake Effect riffs and gang vocals. This is how mosh hardcore should be played, take note 2010 bands.

The insert is brilliant, Dave Quiggle artwork so it's going to be special, I particularly like the bit where, oh, is that Sketch's arm tattoo there? Didn't know he was a Disciple fan. Oh, he wasn't when he got it, I need a Disciple tattoo.

I've just ordered their last LP from Organised Crime records on all 3 colours, it's my personal favourite record they did, let it be said that I prefer their later work and not the first 7". I didn't realise they pressed it on vinyl as the CD was on Facedown so it was a nice surprise when I came across it when ordering an Integrity 7".

Mr Megatron, Now That The Autobots Are Gone, What Are your Plans Here On Earth?

2010-03-25T05:06:00.001Z

The second of my great ebay score is Shockwave's 'Autohate' full length, I've got this on black from back in the day but for £2.24 I couldn't pass this up.

I can't decide which Shockwave record I like most, this one has them record a version of the Transformers movie theme, not the main theme mind, one of the ones you don't even notice when you watch it. Those crazy fuckers.

I've never understood the artwork though, Planet Of The Apes? I've read over the lyrics loads and it doesn't seem to be themed with that or anything so I guess they thought it'd be cool to do.

Shockwave This, Shockwave That...

2010-03-25T04:53:00.000Z

I got three records through the post from ebay last week, combined before shipping they came to less than a tenner. Result.

The first was Shockwaves 'Dominicon' LP on Goodlife. I've been meaning to pick this up on LP for a while but never got round to it, when I snapped one up for £2.24 it made my week. This record has two tracks off the 7" on SA MOB and one track from the demo tape (still need to find this, I will own it one day). Plenty of awesome transformers samples all the way through, in fact every track has one without fail!

The record itself is a kind of murky green which goes with the artwork nicely, it sounds dirty as fuck too.

the one thing that narks me is this:

The insert is just the one from the CD version! I hate it when that happens, it's like they're being real lazy, vinyl is about having bigger artwork not a shitty CD sized booklet in a 12" record. Bad dog.

The beggining: Rise & Fall Demo 7"

2010-03-18T15:05:00.000Z

So I decided to start a blog, really I wanted to post a whole bunch of stuff about what records I've been listening to, I like vinyl, so here goes.

I got the Rise & Fall demo 7" through this week, this is a trip down memory lane I can tell you.

It's the first release on Control Records, a limited 500 pressing, looking on their site today it seems the label themselves have sold out of their copies but there are going to be a bunch on distros and other labels sites soon. Pretty good going for a first release, but if you're mates with R&F it's pretty much a no brainer for a debut record if you ask me.

Pressing info ctrl-01:
16 test pressing sleeve / white stamped label / numbered
100 red wax / mailorder sleeve / numbered
400 black wax / regular sleeve
1 red-black split wax / regular sleeve
3 red-black swirl wax / regular sleeve

I picked up the red and the black copies, different artwork for each colour record too which is pretty cool, plus the plastic sleeve has a sticker in the top right simply stating "Rise & Fall demo 2003 Control Records number 1." Minimalist. Inside there's the usual lyrics gumph wuth liner notes from Murph and Bjorn, plus the cover of the original tape demo.

Anyways, when I said this record is a trip down memory lane I really meant it. I picked up a copy of this tape in 2003 when The Break In played H8000 fest that year with R&F, Walls Of Jericho and plenty of bands who I forget, mind you one band covered Davidian by Machinehead and me, Frye and Scott White ran into the main room and literally lost our shit. Great dane. BUt yeah I picked up the demo tape and a shirt (just the stanard R&F text, silver print, Seb SK now owns that baby), after being impressed enough the last 2 times I saw them to purchase a demo (this happens not that often bear in mind).

We listened to the tape on the way home, everyone loved it, just so dark and in your face, the vocals were much different to what Bjorn was doing in The Deal and it felt like we were listening to something really special. Incidentally, we ended up getting the same ferry as Knuckledust and 50 Caliber as they played some fest in Holland. Those dudes are fucking insane! The R&F demo lasted a few months, but my Escort chewed the bastard up, luckily I got a spare copy from Hannah who was dating Bjorn at the time, so I lucked out there. So did the kid who bought the cassette off me on ebay for 15 quid!