ebay japan: throwdown

aahh... holiday time. the calm before the storm which will begin when i start my trip to the family meeting at my parent's house tomorrow. but for now i can lean back and reduce my about-to-be-blogged-pile.

throwdown - beyond repair
yepp, this baby came right over from japan. no big deal you might say. but i think this is incredible. jake has quite some other vinyl related blogs linked to his page. among the obvious is also crucialxtimes, dobek ohashi from tokiyo. at the end of october he was selling a part of his collection on ebay. beside another throwdown lp and a length of time lp (got outbid on both) i really wanted throwdown's first record 'beyond repair'. i won it for a very reasonable price and i think it only took two weeks to arrive.

so through the blog of jake, who is living in the u.k., over dobek from japan this piece of vinyl gets here to the north of germany. and all with the slightest effort. a few clicks to win it, payment through the net as well, just like it would be around the corner. the world is truly a friggin' village.

the music on this is awesome. angry hardcore metal of the late nineties. this really reminds me of that early H8000 scene and bands like congress or xliarx. throwdown changed their style a bit to more hardcore influences on later records, so i was a little surprised at how they sound on their early stuff. but i definitely like it. i was really happy to get it on green vinyl as this is the most limited colour.
solid green vinyl. 215 made. indecision records. 1999.

nb pre-order: cradle of filth

way back when i wrote about cradle of filth's 'darkly, darkly venus aversa' i promised more and here we are.

cradle of filth - the manticore and other horrors
i think this is cradle's 10th full length album and they still deliver! after their return to form with 2008th 'godspeed on the devil's thunder' all cof stuff doesn't disappoint. this time around the production is much better than on 'darkly'. clearer, the drum sound to the point and the vocals don't go down in the entirety. this one comes with pressure and it's a pleasure for the ear. for a cof album this is pretty crisp time wise. "only" about fifty minutes but no weakness at all. the only thing which is a bit of a pity are the lyrics. no real concept this time. which means that there is of course a common thread contentwise but no building up story line. after all i think i'll survive this :-) because musically this is really good material opposed to 'nymphetamine' where a lyrical concept story was missing too.

songs like 'manticore' (with a lovely ooohhhh-ooohhhh-sing-a-long) or 'frost on her pillow' are sending shivers down my spine every time i listen to them. and i don't really know what it is but there is always something special about holding a cradle record in hands. i think it has something to do with my perception of metal music. unlike hardcore, where i demand some standards towards lyrical content and attitude, metal is entertainment to me. and cradle of filth is pure entertainment. so there are some real crackers and every cof fan of the post 'cruelty of the beast' era should like this record.

according to the picture of the inner gatefold the band itself has stripped down to three core members. mascot of the band dani filth of course (who is the only one being a constant member right from the start), paul allender (who went into a four year hiatus from '96 to 2000) and the newest member, martin skaroupka on drums (who is part of the band since 'godspeed'). good line up!

the packaging is very nice. everything feels pretty solid. thick cardboard gatefold sleeve, 180gr vinyl, black dust sleeves (nice touch for the overall impression) and what is most noteworthy - a lp sized booklet. more releases should have one. the cover art compared to the booklet art is pretty lame, though. sadly no coloured vinyl but as said before, the overall impression makes it a quality release by peaceville records. 2012.


cradle of filth - damnation & a day
this record is special to me. together with killswitch engage's 'alive or just breathing' it marks the end of my new metal days. goodbye to korn, coal chamber and all the others that began to bore me. i saw the music video for the song 'babalon a.d.' on a metal show at viva² on tv. watch it here. i found it kind of creepy but there was a certain attraction. i went to the next shop for electronic hardware in my little town which had a small cd section. of course they didn't have the album in stock, i had to have it ordered and waited for it some days to arrive. as i picked it up and payed too much money for it i held a treasure in hands, i was sure about that. now that i have the vinyl re-issue i feel the same excitement. priceless.

as i'm seeing to fill my vinyl collection with releases that i already own on cd, cradle's 'damnation & a day' was high on the list. and of course on coloured vinyl. epic records, or better sony music released a clear red vinyl version of 2000 copies in 2003. this seems not to be a high constraint because it don't comes along ebay very often and if so it goes for a lot of money. at least more than i was willed to pay the two times i got outbid. so the vinyl re-issue god must have heard my prayers as i read that music on vinyl would do the job.

and m.o.v. did an awesome job on this. they pretty much went with the original pressing on epic, excluding the vinyl colour. i'm glad that they didn't release it with a gatefold sleeve. gatefold sleeves are just nothing special anymore when it comes to metal nowadays. everything gets released with gatéfold covers, for good or for bad. this record comes with a thick sleeve so it can house two 180gr lp's with printed dust sleeves. read the pressing information on the sticker.

m.o.v. chose a good date to re-release this record of course. one month before 'manticore' came out. very industrious indeed ;-)
the music however, is in my eyes their best stuff they ever put out. i love the big orchestration (for which they signed to sony), the amount of musical master pieces (the promise of fever - my favourite cof song, better to reign in hell, doberman pharao, the smoke of her burning... i could go on) and the lyrical concept. although i understand quite nothing here. rudimentarily i know that it's about arkangel michael and his fall from grace and his struggeling until the end of the world. but that's it. everything in between is too much mysticism and theological knowledge. maybe someone can explain?

dra: suffer survive, turnstile

suffer survive - project mayhem: declaration of war MMXII

at the moment i just buy everything that demons run amok entertainment releases. quality through and through. same thing with this band from magdeburg called suffer survive. they formed in 2010 and have a split release with mark my words on arrest rec. australia in their back catalogue which i don't know. now this is their full length release. well, admittedly this one is no bomb that will define the perception of hardcore music in the future. it's a solid piece of more of the same. but every sympathizer of bands like madball, biohazard or newer stuff like naysayer will enjoy this.

the production comes with a bit of a poor sound quality but that gives you a nice old school feel ;-) the song 'live to fight' features some guest vocals by scott vogel of terror. the cover art was used by another band on demons run amok in the past. bleed into one's 'words can't save us now' has the same picture, slightly different coloured and with a different layout but still the same pic. check my post for this record with the picture here. strange they didn't seem to realized it. but maybe they didn't care. who knows...

there is a black and a white pressing of this record. i seem to have one of the transitional copies. sweet! love these black streaks throughout the vinyl. the sleeve and the lyric sheet have some nice gold ink, eye catcher!

300 copies on black and another 200 on white vinyl. demons run amok entertainment. 2012.

turnstile - pressure to succeed 7"

man, i love this 7". lovely old school hardcore and i can't help but this reminds me of the beastie boys as soon as i drop the needle :-) this one makes me going nuts when i listen to it at home and makes me sing along loud in the car (only when i drive alone indeed :). i listened to some songs on the net before and knew that i needed this. as i am a bit late to the party i  knew it would be difficult to get a coloured copy. especially as the first press has sold out and the scond press is only on black. finding this 7" at d.r.a. and after reading the 'coloured vinyl' add-on in the description i ordered it right away. when i opened my package i held this in my hands.

looks like black vinyl. i e-mailed marcel asking him to send me a coloured copy while i would send back the black one, even though i suspected that this was all about a mistake in the description and that marcel actually didn't have a coloured copy. it turned out to be just as i anticipated. marcel offered me a refund but i refused because i really like 'pressure to succeed'. luckily a few weeks later i was able to score the pre-order version on ebay. but this will be another story.

321 on black vinyl with the standard cover. 2nd press. reaper records. 2011.

ebay: the distance

the distance demo ep 7"

this was more an impulse buy on ebay. it was sunday, i had nothing to do but surfing around a bit on ebay and through references of madball and terror in the description i stumbled across this auction. there were only some minutes left and no bid. the guy selling it said that this is the pre-order edition of very limited quantity. ok, if nobody wanted it i would take it for some peanuts. no sooner said than done. i won it for one lousy euro and some postage. 

the 7" comes with the big hole, hand stamped labels and is one-sided. what the hell?! a one sided 7"? weird! i mean, why would someone do that when there are four songs of more or less normal length? but anyway, the cover can be folded out into a nice poster. not that i would hang it on the wall because then there would be no cover, but it looks nice.

the dust sleeve is stamped too. as i said before i bought this because there was the opportunity to get it on the cheap and not because i really wanted it. i listened to this two or three times but i don't really like the distance. this will be filed away with the good feeling to have it in the pre-order version. that's it.

white marbled blue vinyl. 100 made. takeover records. 2003.

impericon: war from a harlots mouth

war from a harlots mouth - voyeur

my goodness, after i listened to this record for the first time i had to lean back and take a deep breath. wfahm asks a lot of the listener! 'voyeur' gives you everything if you're willing to make the effort. it's fast, it's slow, it's chaotic, it's heavy, it's dark, it's dreamy, it's frightening, it's quiet, it's beautiful - all of this on a vinyl plate. they pretty much stood true to their development. the next logical step so to speak. it's not far from 'mmx' but you can't deny the new additions to their sound. first thing that jumps right at you is the cleaner sound. 'mmx' rumbled a bit more. these changes are always a question of personal taste. i like it. next thing is nico the singer. almost imperceptibly he added more variety. listen to 'the black lodge' and you'll know what i mean. lastly and i think this is more a personal opinion again, this record is darker. from the cover art, over the intro, skip and outro (old horror movie string ensemble) to the lyrics which all seem to deal with the current control mania in western society and the trend of building total police states. there is an overall dark feeling to it.

it's amazing how wfahm plays with harmonies and disharmonies. they are always hard on the edge of overstepping the mark of too much dissonance before they push you into another wonderful soundscape. check the song 'scopophobia' on youtube with guest vocals by arkadi zaslavski of dioramic. i think it's pretty representive for the rest of the songs.

wfahm changed their record label for this release. from lifeforce records to season of mist records from france. at first i thought i had to order from france because the most common distro nuclear blast records didn't offer it. 'damned be foreign shipping costs!' was my thought. moreover i exchanged some mails with a dude of season of mist asking for eventual colour pressings. he said that most likely it would appear only on black vinyl. so my anticipation wasn't that cheerful. that changed immediately as i got a link to the impericon site, a german hardcore merchandise giant. first point to be happy about was the lower shipping costs and the second was the pre-order deal.

with the lovely clear vinyl came a download card, a poster, a sticker and a shirt. nice stuff! on the bonus stuff picture you can see the cut out pressing info sticker that was attached to the shrink wrap. as i always remove the shrink wrap to store the records into reclosable poly bags, the attempts of removing these stickers are everytime a gamble. sometimes they can be removed easily, sometimes they crease or even rip. after a great trick revealed by mike of the one thing that still holds true blog i was able to solve that problem ;-)

season of mist records. 2012.

ebay: black friday '29

black friday '29 - the pursuit of happiness

one of many pick ups i made on ebay recently. as i mentioned before in my verse posts, this type of hardcore engrossed me lately. black friday '29 is, or better was a band out of the ruhrpott area, germany. they were pretty popular and one of the heavyweights of european straight edge hardcore. i don't know if their reputation made it across the pond but u.s. fellows may know them by the split shared with death before dishonor on bridge9. anyway, this album was their 2nd output and is such a great record. songs like 'ghosts' or 'the best in me' are real crackers. timeless!

i scored this clear version for 8 bucks which is definitely at less than fair value. but who am i to complain? it was a bargain. 

the cd version was released on blacktop records. never heard of them. the vinyl got put out on uk's dead and gone records. irony of fate this label is just what they were calling themselves. 

clear vinyl. 300 made. dead and gone records. 2007. 

cobra rec.: coldburn, empowerment, hell & back

coldburn - the harsh fangs of life
pre-order time at cobra records. previously i wrote about coldburn's first 7" called 'hybris'. their full length is definitely a step forward. they still got these pretty unique melodies and strange but lovely pace changes included in their heavy hardcore sound. what really stands out is the development of the singing abilities of the vocalist. he added a melodic edge to his screaming without ever sounding cheesy. all in all they don't managed to keep the high quality of the first half of the record throughout the whole play time but that just means that they're that close to a masterpiece.

the record comes in a nice matte paper sleeve and with a poly bag that has a sticker with band and album name attached to it. furthermore you get the always welcomed download dropcard.

i have the pre-order version. i got sweaty hands as i read the colour description 'red/white'. thought it'd be a split coloured record. as i pulled it out of the dust sleeve i was a bit disappointed. it's a clear red vinyl with some white streaks. they are hard to see, not only in this picture :-)
pre-order edition. limited to 100 copies. cobra records. 2012.

empowerment - gegen.kult
this stuttgart based band with ex-members of teamkiller got a bit hyped recently but empowerment deserves this. they are different to your average hardcore band repeating itself over and over again. they maybe aren't different in music but definitely in words. empowerment has a message and plenty of statements. statements against rasicm, police, politics, consumerism and conformity. loud and clear, without any metaphors or common phrases - and in german. so this will probably stay a german thing. but even if your mother tongue isn't german, empowerment is packed with energy and that'll work non verbally. music is somewhere around madball, merauder and biohazard. nyc school ;-) listen to it here.

the packaging is outstanding, too. the sleeve has some kind of cardboard turntable attached under the upper cover. so you can choose between 4 characters standing in the door of the trailer.

i've chosen the best looking chick ;-) additonally you get a fold out lyric sheet in poster format with a band picture on the flip side. sadly there is no download card but i got the rarest vinyl colour so that thing evens itself out.

cyan blue vinyl. 200 made. cobra records. 2012.

hell & back - everything you say is just how bad things are 7"

another band out of stuttgart. usually this isn't my taste. you find hell & back somewhere between punkrock and hardcore. but this is such great, positive music that makes you feel good immediately. i couldn't resist... my girlfriend said it sounds a bit like old foo fighters. yeah, she isn't that far away. you can listen to their stuff over at partyausfall.

just like the coldburn lp i thought i would get a split coloured 7". description was red/clear vinyl... ok, i should have known. i was lesser interested in the 'clear/black' coloured vinyl. now i saw that it's clear with black smoke. damn! but to be honest, i'm not too bothered to buy another copy. although it itches...

200 made. comes with a download code. cobra records. 2012.