Freitag, 31. Januar 2014

harms way - isolation

like i mentioned in the previous post, my first real encounter with this great band came with the discovery of an ebay auction. someone who is listening to die young (tx), meltdown and above all undertow proved some good taste in music, therefore i put some effort in checking out harms way. so i listened to something like two songs from the 'isolation' record and was sold.
boy, this is intense, dark, cold and depressive music. the feeling that really sticks out to me listening to 'isolation', is the feeling of coldness. give 'scrambled' and 'becoming' a listen and tell me you don't have to put on another sweater, because it seems like the temparture dropped rapidly in your room :-) i love it when you can feel music instead of just hearing it. to me, harms way's 'isolation' is such an album.
the artwork is great. looks like the same guy worked on wolfxdown's 'stray from the path'. also you get a black dust sleeve and nice split coloured vinyl. yeah, you know i love this colour pattern. half solid white and half clear looks ace! i scored this record from per koro distro as well because i missed it on ebay. closed casket activities. 2011.

Donnerstag, 30. Januar 2014

harms way - reality approaches

i decided to make a small band related string of posts. because of the loss of the most of my vinyl pictures, my initial order, in which i posted up my records is dead and gone. so i get experimiental here, haha. over the months i brought together all the harms way records i want at the currency. i already posted about their 'no gods, no masters' 7". so now the first vinyl disc in line is their first full length album called 'reality approaches'.
i got this, together with some other records, as part of a per koro order. it was released on organized crimes records and this is a latter pressing on white vinyl. i got aware of them because of an ebay auction. a seller had a harms way lp among his offerings and as i was bidding on some good stuff of his collection, i thought i might check harms way out. he offered the 'isolation' lp and i listened to it on the net and found it pretty good.
so i checked back what per koro had to offer and, well, that's the story so far. the album itself is quite good. a mix of kiloton hardcore and metal. when you listen to the stuff that followed, you'll recognise this album as a part of a development. they didn't quite reach the sound they were looking for, so 'reality approaches' pales a bit in comparison with their further discography. but i like it for what it is. sounds a lot like integrity in my ears. check some tunes here. as said before, this is a later pressing, the third to be exact, on white vinyl. i couldn't find any numbers. organized crime records. 2009.

Samstag, 25. Januar 2014

born from pain - the new future

you know how it is, when you order a record you just have to look around for another possible new vinyl disc. so as i packed the arkangel is your enemy lp into my cart, i looked for another one to add. and there it smiled back at me. born from pain's latest output 'the new future'. in the past, ten years ago, netherland's born from pain was one of my hero bands from europe that made me love hardcore and all its values. boy, 'sands of time' was such a good record! after vocalist che snelting left the band in 2007 i lost track of them. to this day i never listened to their 'survival' album from 2008.
now with this record from 2012 they left metal blade records, or maybe metal blade dropped them, and went back to gsr music. musically i got a split opinion about the record. the first half is very good and then born from pain opens the door for electronic elements to their sound. and this is where they lost me. meehh... i don't like that. i mean, i appreciate that for their guts to experiment with stuff, only the brave are favoured by fortune, but it just doesn't work for me. check 'change or die' and 'kampfbereit' (which is the german word for being embattled) for a good and a bad example.
the record comes in a gatefold sleeve of nice thick cardboard. the artwork is well thought out but again not really my thing. the vinyl itself comes on lovely 180gr clear green vinyl. furthermore you get a cool laminated download dropcard. to put it into a nutshell: the album is ok. they can't come close to their early works. hopefully gsr considers a vinyl pressing of their debut 'reclaiming the crown'. so if anyone of gsr is reading this, i'd dedfinitely buy one :) gsr music. 2012. 

Dienstag, 21. Januar 2014

arkangel is your enemy

arkangel is, next to congress my favourite edge metal band from belgium. considering this, my arkangel vinyl collection is what one would call insufficient. i only have 'dead man walking' to call my own. so of course i needed more. as 'hope you die by overdose' and especially 'prayers upon deaf ears' are pretty hard to come by on coloured vinyl, i was happy as gsr music announced to finally press 'arkangel is your enemy' to vinyl.
of course i pre-ordered this thing as soon as it was up. fortunately gsr ships from germany also (they're a label from the netherlands actually) so i didn't even have to pay higher shipping costs. when it came around i was pretty stoked on the packaging. foremost i prefer the cover artwork of the vinyl over the cd artwork.
you can see the cd cover in picture #3, gsr included the cd booklet instead of an proper insert. can't say i'm a big fan of that but that's pretty much the only downer here. the record comes in a gatefold sleeve with great simplistic layout on the inside. furthermore you get nice 180gr clear green vinyl and a black dust sleeve. solid all around.
another nice gimmick is that you have to hold the sleeve vertically to worship all the beauty of the cover art. a friggin' guillotine seems to be a suitable declaration of war by arkangel. musically i really like this album. it has everything you can ask for as an arkangel fan. this typical mixture of death metal and hardcore ethics that made them great in the first place. this is 2008 and still sounds as late nineties as it gets. thumbs up! check 'slow but heavy' and buy this record! don't know how many were made, 500 maybe? gsr music. 2008/2013.

Sonntag, 19. Januar 2014

outspoken - the current 7"

so this is the second piece of vinyl i ordered from willem. again he let this go for a very reasonable price. i had the chance to snag a clear vinyl version from 1994 (500 copies) on ebay but missed it. so i was happy to get the far more limited '77 pressing with the walk and proud labels from 2011.
i really love the three songs here. nineties hardcore in perfection. even though the band re-united several times in 1998, 2003, 2005 and 2011, including a european tour, they never made it to a new album or ep. i don't know about the current status but if an album was as solid as the latest strife record, i would be satisfied.
the packaging is a bit lame, though. i don't mean the cover picture, which is nice hardcore standard, but the 'sleeve' is just a photo-copied piece of cheap paper. probably there is an idea behind that i'm unaware of but it feels like a rushed job. the vinyl however looks fantastic. marbled green vinyl. 77 copies made. new age records/conversion records. 1994/2011.

Mittwoch, 15. Januar 2014

outspoken - survival 7"

outspoken was never as present on my mind as other bands from that time, like strife for example. i knew them by name and knew vaguely that they were standing for animal liberation, which is always very likeable in my book, but that's it. so as i looked through willem's discogs stuff i knew it was time to make a change about that.
willem had one copy of the third press to offer for a very reasonable price and so i took the chance. i think sound wise this is closer to 80's hardcore but there is definitely a 90's vibe going on, which is more recognisable on 'the current'. but that's because of the year it appeared, i guess. pretty good cover artwork here too. one can see that this began to get more important.
as i said before, this copy is part of the third press that new age pressed in 2010 if memory serves. like the colour way, nice marbled orange vinyl which new age called 'burnt orange'. agreed. there are 77 copies for the '77 pressing' (ingenious name) on 'bubble gum red' vinyl and 207 copies on my 'burnt orange'. new age records. conversion records. 1990.

Dienstag, 14. Januar 2014

fear my thoughts - hell sweet hell

after i bought the cd version of fear my thought's 'the great collapse' on cd in a saturn electronic market sometime in 2004 and really loved it, i was eager to listen to the follow-up. only one year later the time had come. 'hell sweet hell' was the name and again, lifeforce records was the label. so everything was prepared for a good album.
but what actually hit my ears didn't fulfil my expectations. gone were the complex song structures and the already few hardcore elements. hello to a more catchier and more metal approach that reminded me a lot of mid 00's swedish melodic death metal ala in flames ('reroute to remain') and dark tranquility. meehh... not my thing. and i never was able to convince myself to listen the two albums that came after 'hell sweet hell'.
but as i saw this sealed record from the same seller as the 'vitriol' lp of the last post, i just couldn't resist. again i got it for real cheap and together with 'vitriol', i paid as much as i would have for one single lp. deal! by now i can appreciate it for what it is. some strong songs here. check 'in the hourglass'. silent stagnation records (r.i.p.) from germany handled the vinyl version but i don't know how many were made on clear green vinyl, which seems to be the only colour. 500 copies maybe? but that's just a guess. 2005.

Sonntag, 12. Januar 2014

fear my thoughts - vitriol

as i started out getting deep into european metalcore of the early days, a time where the word doesn't have this dull aftertaste of today's hipster scene, fear my thought's 'the great collapse' was one of the albums i fell in love with. everything that came after that wasn't really my taste and the stuff before that just never made it to my ears. there just never had been the right time and place for that, i suppose.
you know this new ebay feature, your personal feed? a page where your searching habbits get linked to auctions a computer brain thinks you might be interested in. i rarely look through that. mostly it's just b.i.n. auctions with useless stuff that are shown to me. but one time, pretty much high in the list, i glimpsed a familiar looking cover. it was the 'vitriol' record, their second full length, on coloured vinyl. so of course i wanted it and i got it for next to nothing. score!
musically they sounded a bit more chaotic on 'vitriol' than on 'the great collapse', but that's pretty much all when it comes to differences. very well executed complex metal with a hardcore edge to it. so if you liked 'the great collapse' you'll like 'vitriol' too. check out 'as i bleed', good stuff!
the record was released by let it burn records. a small d.i.y. label from munich, germany. they didn't release much vinyl of their outputs, mainly cd. but 'vitriol' got the vinyl treatment. 666 copies were pressed in total with 111 of that on marbled white vinyl. not many people seemed to care for it, considering the price i got it for but it's still rare to appear on ebay. so i'm really happy with it! let it burn records. 2002. 

Samstag, 11. Januar 2014

harms way - no gods, no masters 7"

for the first time i checked this band out in last year's september, i believe. it was because of an ebay auction i was watching, for the album 'isolation'. i really liked it and wanted to check out more of their discography. so the obvious place where i thought i might find some more harms way stuff was, again, ebay. i was really happy to find a copy of their 'no gods, no masters' 7" released before 'isolation' dropped in 2011. 
i was quite surprised to pay something around 15€. doesn't seem too high, i know, but i don't think that there are that much people here in germany who know them, plus it's a second press copy. the songs on this piece of plastic are very good. heavy and dark metallic hardcore with a singer who sounds like a barking rottweiler. check the song 'king'. at the end you can here a sample of 'american psycho'. i mean, that's cool but i can recall at least three other bands that used this or another line for their songs. doesn't seem too imaginative anymore. 
this 7" was released in 2010 and came out on closed casket activities. closed casket made three pressings by now, with the latest having appeared in 2013. as mentioned before, my copy is of the second press. 150 on clear w/ red/white/blue splatter and 516 copies on yellow w/ hot pink splatter. for detailed information about the other pressings you can have a look at the closed casket web side. 2010.

Montag, 6. Januar 2014

madball - n.y.h.c. ep 7"

i won this baby on ebay for next to nothing. i think it was five bucks or something. the n.y.h.c. ep was the forerunner to their comeback release after five years in the form of 'legacy'. except their first three records, madball never had any consistency when it comes to their labels. and again this recording came out on several labels on different formats.
alone the n.y.h.c. ep was released on five different labels (the number 'five' has a strange consistency in this post). gsr music (eu), thorp records (usa) and submission records (japan) for the cd version. martyr records (usa) and reality records (eu) for the vinyl version. i obtained a copy of the european vinyl edition that appeared on belgium's reality records.
musically this ep is brilliant in my book. it promised more than 'legacy' could live up to. check it out in full length here. i have a clear green w/ black splatter copy of the first press. there are 500 copies on this colour and another 500 on orange vinyl, plus a second press of 500 purple copies. reality records. 2004.

Sonntag, 5. Januar 2014

kataklysm - waiting for the end to come

as nuclear blast announced the release of the new kataklysm record i wasn't too excited about it. i really don't know why because i loved 'heaven's venom', their album from 2010, which i still haven't got around to picking it up. anyway, despite my little anticipation, of course i pre-ordered this thing in the limited colour version.
musically you get 100% kataklysm. if you liked the last three to four records of them, you won't be disappointed with 'waiting for the end to come'. crushing grooves and epic melodies, the ingredients that kataklysm successfully worked with for years, and yepp, it worked this time as well.
the presentation of that album is pretty sweet. indeed, you get the inevitable gatefold sleeve but the layout justifies the choice of it. the cover art is very good. an apocalyptic, pencil-drawn image of a man tearing apart the foundations of the kataklysm logo. looks quite metal and i like it :-) what i don't like is the constant refusal of nuclear blast do include a simple download code to their vinyl releases. that sucks big time nuclear blast!
just like the black dahlia murder record of the last post, this vinyl disc reveals its true magick held against a light source. i really like that colour pattern. even without the holding it up to the light thing, one can see the marble effect slightly. cool thing.
nuclear blast changed their pressing info stickers a bit, now coming in the colour of the vinyl. looks good. the nb germany colour vinyl edition comes on yellow. i saw the u.s. version on ebay and it's grey. this one here limited to 250 copies with mine being number 226. comes with a big poster with alternate cover art. nuclear blast records. 2013.

Samstag, 4. Januar 2014

the black dahlia murder - deflorate

i have my searching habbits when it's about chasing new vinyl. i regulary visit two internet pages/platforms to obtain new records. first is ebay and second is the nuclear blast shop. of course there are other sources, like per koro, but only for particular releases i read news about. whereas looking around at ebay and nuclear blast has a distinct routine.
so as i was poking around at the 'new vinyl' section at nuclear blast and as my eyes fell onto this re-release of the black dahlia murder's fourth album 'deflorate', excitement ran through me. the last dahlia murder record 'everblack' really did grow on me, therefore metal blade came up with good timing for a re-release like this. indeed.
'deflorate' got the vinyl treatment for the first time in 2009 on nice blue splatter vinyl. unfortunately a copy of this press sells rarely and if so, for more money than i was willing to pay. so this re-press was more than welcomed. it comes with a lovely gatefold sleeve and a poster with the cover art work.
if you ask me, the vinyl colour looks pretty sweet on its own. but the real fresh-looking -ness reveals holding the record up to the light. mmmmhhh... marbled. love that! musically 'deflorate' is one of their weaker outputs, as long as i'm concerned. which doesn't mean that it ain't pretty damn good, just not as brilliant as other albums.
metal blade also re-released their first record 'unhallowed' which i bought too and will be shown here in due time. for now i'm hoping metal blade will do a 'miasma' colour re-press. it'd complete my the black dahlia murder vinyl collection. good things come to those who wait. 500 copies on pumpkin vinyl. metal blade. 2009/2013.

Freitag, 3. Januar 2014

jealous - the romance split 7"

i wasn't really sure if i should post about this record in the first place. on the one hand i post about records i have actually purchased. as i got this as a freebie with the casey jones-traitor split of the previous post, i couldn't say this was a purchase. but on the other hand this blog covers my collection and as 7" this will be part of my collection, i finally decided to write about it.
it is the split 7" between u.k.'s jealous and sweden's the romance. both bands play pretty pissed and sometimes noisy hardcore. i think i like jealous a bit more in direct comparison. unfortunately i can't provide you with some music samples from the internet. i did find jealous' facebook page but it has no music player. and the romance was a complete dead end. found nothing at all.
furthermore the vinyl itself seems to have sold out over at anchors aweigh bigcartel. anchors aweigh is the italian label the split appeared on and from which i grabbed some stuff the last year. what i want to say, is that i cannot provide you with some pressing information either. anyone? clear red w/ black splatter vinyl. anchors aweigh records. 2007.