disarmare: wolfxdown, fallen into ashes

i'm not quite sure on what occasion i bought this nice german fanzine at burnout record store, it must have been the time i bought dead swans+naysayer but anyway i picked up 'project print 4#'.

i mainly got it because my uncle's band isolated is featured (if you like straight foreward hardcore punk check them out here). as you can see on the cover wolfxdown got the lead story. i read it and things took its course...

wolfxdown - MMXI 7"
wxd are a political vegan straight edge band from the ruhrpott area. they are active since last year and they released this cracker in the same year as the name indicates clearly. the article in project print was interesting, the answers of the female singer were very sophisticated. sometimes a little bit over the top but definitely encouraged. they caught my attention.
i checked their bandcamp site and followed the link to their e-shop hosted by disarmare, a german d.i.y. distro.

i was pretty lucky to grab one because disarmare said that they had only a few copies of the third and final press left on red vinyl. it has sold out by now.

love the artwork and the colour scheme of the whole layout. four songs on this e.p. and the song 'rot' with a massive breakdown that i feel an urge to see them live just to be part of that pit ;)
150 made on clear bordeaux red vinyl. a co-release of germany's start a fire records and america's xcatalystx records. 2011.

wolfxdown - renegades 7"
buying their first release i couldn't resist getting their sophomore release too. 'renegades' may not be as strong as 'MMXI' but i think it needs a bit more time to grow on me. it's still forceful hardcore metal with a nineties edge to it and real good lyrics which are worth spending some time with them.

money talks but i'm not listening

i fucking bite the hand that feeds

so if you always thought that walls of jericho's older stuff is way more preferrable and if you can dig sophisticated socio-critical lyrics you have to check them out!

the cover is a nice fold out poster with the lyrics on the flip side. a download drop card is included which is pretty senseless because 'renegades' is for free download on the start a fire site anyway, by the way 'MMXI' too. 

clear marbled orange vinyl. 200 made and still available! start a fire records. 2012.

fallen into ashes vs. zero tolerance split 7"

after i pressed 2x the add to card button for the wolfxdown 7"es i checked the rest of disarmare's stuff. i came across a name that sounded quite familiar to me - fallen into ashes from hungary. around 2006 i bought a lot of cd releases by a eastern europe label called deadbutcher records. bands like abhorrence, action, crowley's passion and fallen into ashes of course. i have their '04 e.p. 'laments for lost victories' on cd.

i liked it and so i picked the 7" up, just for the hell of it.

it comes with a nice silk screened cover, light blue with golden ink. additionally you get some sort of download dropcard. it says you should write a mail to the label's address, stating your copy number and in return you get a digital copy. i did so two weeks ago but no reply yet. this came out in 2009 and i don't know if the label, dzsukhell records namely, is still active. so maybe i'll wait for the reply forever ;)

i found the following pressing information: 333 copies in total. 125 with a black cover, 108 with a red cover and 100 with a blue cover. the blue cover copies are on clear vinyl and i've seen the black cover copies are on clear w/ black smoke vinyl. don't know about the red cover copies.

the fallen into ashes side is superb! slightly chaotic hardcore with metal influence throughout. the zero tolerance part (they're also from budapest, hungary) is not really my piece of cake.
dzsukhell records. 2009.

burnout store: dead swans, naysayer

on my last trip to this fine store in hamburg's schanze district i found these crackers!

dead swans - anxiety and everything else

sunday is my usual posting day. next in line for today was dead swans (i post about records in the order i bought them). before i do so i look around a bit on the net. usually i visit partyausfall.de, a german internet fanzine, for news. one of the news of today was the break up of dead swans... what a fucked up connection!

so here is my swan song for dead swans (tragic wordplay). on my other visits at burnout i saw the record many times before. after 'sleepwalkers' and their part of the split with architects were on heavy rotation on my player the obtaining of 'anxiety and everything else' was just a question of time. if you liked the previuos stuff you won't get past this one! sound wise it's more raw than the other releases but that's no weakness at all.

they plan a farewell tour for the last quarter of the year. some selected dates in the uk. unless i won't win a journey to one of these gigs i will most likely never see them live. a shame...

the vinyl itself comes in a lovely clear red / clear split colour. looks rad! can't say how many were made. bridge9 discography just says that there is a grey w/ white swirl version of this but no numbers.

bridge9 records. 2012.

naysayer - laid to rest

originally i ordered this record along with this order here. per koro/markus couldn't get it because of problems with delivery and i recalled that i've seen this at burnout too. it was still there and what was even more satisfying was the fact that they had the rarer clear w/ blue splatter version. nice score!

great to here the development to their previous 7"es. love it to hear something unexpected (the song 'laid to rest') next to their usual stuff, which is pretty good midtempo old school hardcore.

the record comes with a heavy cardboard sleeve, an insert with all lyrics and the always welcomed download drop card.

put against a darker background the white splatter pops out quite good. nice center label :)

clear w/ blue and white splatter vinyl. 650 made. reaper records. 2011.

discogs: nile

nile - those whom the gods detest

reading my blog from time to time you may recognized that i'm a nile fan. i love the overall way they present their releases. epic death metal, outstanding lyrics, well thought cover art, liner notes, gatefold sleeves - all that stuff makes any nile record a master piece. i could already obtain 'in their darkened shrines' and 'ithyphallic' + 'at the gate of sethu' together. so next and pretty high on my want list was 'annihilation of the wicked' and 'those whom the gods detest' (t.w.t.g.d.), both on coloured vinyl indeed. 

i check various sources constantly for the possibility to nab a record of my want list. discogs is among them. looking for 't.w.t.g.d.' i found a seller from the netherlands selling it for 25€. i don't know what was wrong with me but i didn't grab it right away. even a week or so passed and i was still inactive. i mean 25 bucks is an alright price for a coloured copy that has sold out for some time. 

so one afternoon, i was hanging around lazily, i had the following furtive dialogue with myself concerning this collector's item...

-so tino, let's talk about you're so-called nile mission, ok?-

"ok."

-you like nile pretty much, right?-

"yepp"

-and you'd like to have all their stuff on coloured vinyl. that correct?-

"not really all their stuff, but principally yes."

-so you've spotted 't.w.t.g.d.' on discogs?-

"right."

-and it's a coloured copy?-

"that's what the description says, yeah."

-for a fair price?-

"well... yeah, that's right. oh, and it's sealed"

-so let's summarize this. you can get a sealed, sold out copy of a record you want pretty bad for a good price and waited a week already and didn't buy it yet? have i got that right?-

"eeehhhmm... i mean... that's what it seems like to be..."  

-what kind of mindless idiot are you? get your ass up and do what you should have done a week ago!-

"yes, sir!"

i bought it and after my vacation the record waited for me at my neighbour who friendly accepted it from the post man :)

nice colouring! opaque beige with multi colour speckles. on the back of the printed dust sleeves the liner notes are printed.

of course it comes in a gatefold sleeve. the inside shows the song lyrics and the credits.

really nice about it is that unlike the german black vinyl version this nuclear blast u.s. version comes with a cd of the entire album. so you can have a digital copy without using a sneaky download. i cut out the sticker that was on the shrink wrap. it's limited to 1000 copies. 

nuclear blast u.s.a. 2009.

kings road merch: obey the brave

obey the brave - young blood
obey the brave is the new band of alex erian, former vocalist of disbanded despised icon (a shame). i loved his voice in the context of despised icon's modern technical death metal. it brought some hardcore vibe to it which made them pretty unique. so as i heard he would start a hardcore band i was all over it. when i got their debut 7" 'ups and downs' i said already that they don't reinvent the wheel but i liked it anyway. listening to the opening lines in their intro 'lifestyle' i chuckled inevitably.

not trying to reinvent the wheel

we keep it simple

we keep it real

these lines say it all. you get nothing what you didn't hear before. old parkway drive, the ghost inside (they are also on epitaph, coincedence?) are the bands that came to my mind immediately. but admittedly it's all played on a high quality level. catchy melodies, crew shouts, break downs. so with the first preparing lines and a damn cool hip hop skit ('grim') they got my sympathy (even the clean guest vovals on 'burning bridges' of ligeia's keith holuk couldn't destroy that :). better a band knowing they are not the most innovative musicians around than a band jumping on every new trend. 

the picture on the kings road europe site shows a kind of opaque yellow vinyl. the sticker on the cover to verify the colour is pretty yellow too. the vinyl however is definitely a clear orange. don't know how many were pressed.

printed dust sleeve + cd with the entire album. epitaph records. 2012.

demons run amok pt. II: the lowest, solid ground

the lowest - s/t

oh boy, how i love this one! the lowest are a band from poland, warsaw to be exact. i love finding good bands from countries of which i didn't think their hardcore scene would produce something great like this. thinking of eastern europe i can only name a handful of bands (action-cz, abhorrence-sk, fallen into ashes-hu, xangelreichx-pl. well, that's not even a handful and i couldn't even tell if these bands are still active - fallen into ashes definitely isn't). so it was a nice surprise to me reading the unregular appearing demons run amok newsletter with a link to the lowest bandcamp site. after listening to it i had only one chance finding my inner peace again - ordering it!!! it's pretty dark, down tuned modern hardcore (d.r.a. says: chokehold meets terror meets have heart) with lyrics about poverty, social injustice, desperation.

it's a cooperational release of d.r.a. with the polish label pop underground. 100 are pressed on white, 300 on black and another 100 on clear w/ black smoke of which i could nab one. the sleeve is not an actual sleeve, more a big folded poster of thick quality (to reduce costs i assume).

the colouring is pretty clever i think because it looks a lot like the photo on the centre label of the vinyl and on the sleeve inside which shows the inner texture of a tree.

demons run amok entertainment / pop underground. 2012.

solid ground - can't stop now

a swiss hardcore band which is not active anymore. i ordered a copy way back to last year. the one i got had a scratch - not big time, just a small one but pretty deep and unlistenable. because it just cost me 5 bucks and was an addition to a bigger order i didn't make a big deal out of it. i asked marcel (the guy running d.r.a.) to send me a new one. he said he would but never actually did it and i just completely forgot about it. so without even reminding the incident he seemed to remember it this time and unaskedly added a new copy. i was quite happy about it :)

good old school hardcore with hints of madball, skarhead and the like. i have the regular pressing of 300 on clear red w/ black smoke (there's a tour pressing of 100 on clear red and pre-order pressing of 100 on clear blue). printed dust sleeve. demons run amok entertainment. 2008.

demons run amok pt. I: deliver, lie & wait

this is part one of two of my demons run amok order:

deliver - lack of resistance 7"
this german five-piece out of the stuttgart area is one of my more recent discoveries. they signed a deal with demons run amok entertainment which allows them to throw out a picture 7" every quarter of a year. as i could read they plan to make a whole album out of it in the end. i'm pretty excited about what the future will bring.
so this is picture disc #2 entitled 'lack of resistance'. like the first release 'deliverance' (of which i posted here) it's enjoyable hardcore with a good portion of melody. the band itself made one or two line-up changes but they stood true to their musical style. so if you liked 'deliverance' you'll like this as well. you can download their stuff on their very own website and after you listened to it you can enter the label's store to purchase a copy :)

the whole package

side 1

side 2

like 'deliverance' this is limited to 300 handnumbered copies. demons run amok entertainment. 2012.

lie & wait-lmf split 7"

i wanted this more for the sake of completion because lie & wait did really grow on me. as i already own all their follow up releases (as you can read here and here) i just needed the split with lmf from 2006. i was lucky to find it at demons run amok and included it thankfully in this order. the lie & wait songs are cool, not as good as the later stuff but nice to hear their development. lmf though is just not my taste.

couldn't find any pressing info. by all means there are three colours of it (opaque teal, clear gold, clear blue) and mine, the clear blue, seems to be the more common variation. wormhole records. 2006.

per koro: naysayer, conqueror

naysayer - no remorse 7"
another band's name that was on my mind for a while but i never really got around to it. but then one day, again inspired by a post by j@sfr i headed straight over to per koro records and managed to order some naysayer stuff.
this is their first 7" i believe. it lacks substance a bit but it's still good and worth having it!

i have the clear red version which is of the second press. 980 made. reaper records. 2009.

naysayer - down but not out 7"
this is their appetizer output for their full length record 'laid to rest' which i actually included in this order but was not available at the point (i scored it on a different opportunity - more of that later). so all in all i like this way better than the 'no remorse' 7". a bit faster and more recall value. i love the oldschool look of this with the home printed insert and the whole live picture layout. thumbs up!

it's the most common colour of the first press. clear blue out of 621. it comes with a download drop card. reaper records. 2011.

conqueror - s/t 7"
i checked this band out around the time this release came out. 2009 that was. i can recall that i liked their stuff but i never bought something of them because this release came out on vinyl only and back then i wasn't into vinyl. i came across this on the per koro shop and thought that the time had come for conqueror and me :)

xseventh daggerx pressed three colours of it. 100 on red w/ white swirl, 200 on green w/ white swirl and 200 on black w/ white swirl. the last two mentioned definitely have different covers (a creature-of-the-black-lagoon cover and a frankenstein's-monster cover) as they are still available on the xseventh daggerx shop. don't know about the red one.
because there is no possibility of chosing colours at per koro i was pretty excited about what i would get. it turned out to be the frankenstein's-monster cover and it looks pretty decent! only the black w/ white swirl vinyl seems to look more like a grey w/ black and white marble :) maybe i'll get the green one too.
xseventh daggerx records. 2009.

ebay: deadsoil

deadsoil - the venom divine
this release is kind of tied up with all these records of european hardcore metal i grabbed around 2004. bands like maroon, destiny, cataract, caliban, born from pain and the like. this now disbanded german 5-piece threw some fast thrash metal, some death metal and some tough guy hardcore in the mix. it's good stuff, not overall brilliant but solid. had this on cd since '04 and i knew that it was out on vinyl for quite some time. i couldn't find it on any e-shop and so i waited to score it on ebay for a low price because as said before i'm not too stoked on it. it's up on the bay constantly by a seller who seems to have a whole bunch of copies. and finally one sunday afternoon i was able to get it for 8 bucks all in all.

side 1

side 2

this picture disc came with a nice cardboard sleeve and a lyrics sheet. that's the way i like my picture disc. hate it when they just come in plastic sleeves!

couldn't find any pressing information. so feel free to enlighten me. released 2004. bastardized recordings.

ugly & proud records: allocation

allocation - corvus corax, corvus corone [soul birds] 10"

as i ordered this release of this fine belgium band i had some sort of flashback to a post by m@theendlessquest where he describes how he feels drawn to certain releases and how this interacts with cover artwork. 

i was checking the 6131 records store which was hosted by hellfish records store (and still is, i think but 6131 has its own by now). one thing led to another and i was checking the whole hellfish stuff and finding a 10" by a band unkown to me. only the cover artwork was striking to me and i was hooked. check the band's bandcamp site! you can download their stuff and if you're living in europe you can buy their music on vinyl at the ugly & proud records bigcartel shop (for lower shipping costs). if you like bands like converge, botch or integrity you might like this as well :)

the artwork reflects the musical mood to 100%. gloomy, melancholic stuff. on my vacation this year where i was in the harz uplands in germany i came across an information board of regional birds. corvus corax is the latin term for the common raven and corvus corone for the hoodiecrow. yes, education on holidays :) now the addition 'soul birds' makes sense. a i learned from the movie 'the crow' these birds are the carrier of unresting souls. yes, education through fantasy movies :)

held against the light a crazy effect literally comes to light. looks like a hidden continet on a globe.

i think there are 150 made of the orange version (another 150 on clear purple). released 2011. ugly and proud records.