Dienstag, 29. April 2014

no turning back - stronger

whilst i was out for the 'no regrets' record, of which you can read about in the last post, of course i sounded out the situation what more i could get. i was in need to follow an common urge among us collectors. ordering at least two records to keep the illusion alive of making the deal worthwhile. yeah, making it worthwhile by paying more money. sure. but it's a comfortable excuse for buying more vinyl.
no turning back re-released this album from 2008 on their very own take control record label. originally appeared on reflections records this marks their fourth full length album. and it is, what i had expected to be honest, solid. yepp, good ol' new york styled hardcore. nothing wrong with that. watch and listen to 'do you care?' and kick-flip your house in. the presentation is seamless too. thick cardboard sleeve and 180gr coloured vinyl. i scored a yellow/orange mix copy out of 153. 
there is also an opaque orange version out of 247 copies and a blue vinyl version which has sold out since last year already. buy a copy here. so i end todays entry by watching bayern munich losing the football champions league semi-final against real madrid. as a borussia dortmund fan that i am, i call that luck because probably bayern will be weakened when playing the german cup final against bvb next month. we'll see... take control records. 2008/2013.

Sonntag, 27. April 2014

no turning back - no regrets

no turning back from the netherlands are kind of the european equivalent to america's terror. around since 1997 they deliver energetic hardcore the way this kind of music is supposed to be. not all their stuff were masterpieces but always solid. despite that fact i never bought any album in any physical form. i had a copy of 'no regrets' in hands and even listened to the first half of the a-side at burnout store. i found it pretty good but other records and short money were reason enough to put it back. that had to be changed.
at some point last year (yepp, that's how long this record sat on 'to-blog-pile') i thought the time was right to get a copy. so i headed over to the no turning back big cartel shop. i was pretty happy to find that they offered a special version of 'no regrets'. it wasn't first press but it was limited to 100 copies, a nice marbled clear colour-way and even to cover was changed colour-wise. so i ordered and waited. and waited. and waited. i fired off several e-mails but got no reply. finally after three months or something a band member wrote back.
he told me that he was in charge of the shop but wasn't able to run it properly due to a very hard time he went through personally. in the mean time all the limited copies sold out but he said he would cover me with some extra cd's. in view of his situation i declined politely and took a copy of the second press instead. when the package showed up i was surprised to find a sold out first press copy under the cardboard. dark red w/ black marble of 200 copies. sweet! check this playlist at youtube for the whole album. take control records. 2012.

Dienstag, 22. April 2014

undertow 7"

i never spent much time with undertow in the past. next to nothing to be exact. partly due to a lack of money and partly due to a lack of interest. but since i'm listening to a lot of strife and earth crisis in the past, especially their 90's releases, and checking ebay for the records i often came across a reference. undertow. so i listened to some songs on the net. yeah, approved. solid nineties straight edge hardcore. good stuff.
checking ebay loosely for newly listed hardcore records i stumbled upon this nice looking s/t 7". this baby doesn't seem that sought after. i think my winning bid was something around lousy five bucks. so either i'm just a lucky bastard or nobody cares about this piece of vinyl. either way, i'm happy to have snagged this up for a handful of dollars.
as said before, musically this is no-frills sxe hradcore from seattle, usa. check out 'kill', my fav on here. the clear orange vinyl looks pretty nice. in my childhood i used to have a lego spaceship with some signal lights that had just the same clear colour. yes yes, glory days. this 7" came out on indecision records with 1500 copies on black vinyl and 345 copies on said orange vinyl. 1999.

Samstag, 19. April 2014

meltdown 7"

yeah, rsd sucks! you know why? because for the first time i dragged my tired ass into a line before a record store in hamburg (and after that into two more) and came up short on all the stuff i was interested in, three releases to be exact. and i swear that kid before me snagged one of them. ahh well, i should have known better than this. we'll see if the internet can help out. but now to the record at hand. meltdown's self-titled 7".
i scored their demolition 12" pressing including the demo on ebay two years ago. i liked their stuff but wasn't overly excited. so this fell in my lap by chance, so to speak. the seller i got the die young split 7" from was also offering this slab of wax and i got this for a handful of pennies. i have to admit that these three songs are awesome. groove-laden metallic hardcore with a thrash edge to it. check out the first song 'no tomorrow'. boy, what a scorcher!
in that form i could use some more meltdown tunes but i think they disbanded years ago. this 7" came out in 2008 so it's already six years old - man, time flies. 2000 copies were made in total. 300 copies on clear vinyl, 700 copies on black w/ grey splatter vinyl and 1000 on metallic silver vinyl. as you can see i have a silver one. the cover comes on nice matte cardboard with an embossed 'm' on front and back. looks pretty neat! malfunction records/deathwish inc. 2008.

Freitag, 18. April 2014

die young - 7 generations split

since i am in posession of die young's debut record 'graven images' i loosely try to get my hands on their other stuff whenever i get the chance to. i bought their 'loss' 7" last year at underdog store in cologne and here i was able to score their split with 7 generations on ebay for pretty cheap.
the die young song on this is the quality you expect from a die young song. fast and angry metallic hardcore. the second song on their side, 'degradation', is a gorilla biscuits cover. 7 generations, the band this split is shared with, was unknown to me but obviously they released two more 7"es on new eden records and even a full length on new age records in the past decade of the century. their facebook page seems still active though. their second song 'lie' is a downcast cover.
the 7" came out on surprise attack records. a label that was unkown to me too. but i know a handful of their releases checking their roaster. more die young stuff basically. i don't know much about this pressing. only the obvious colour, opaque orange. surprise attack records. 2005.

by the way die young released a new ep this week, called 'chosen path'. ugly and proud records handled things and you can order it here. naturally i already have my copy and i'll post about it the coming week. 

Montag, 14. April 2014

backtrack - lost in life

i needed some time to secure me a copy of backtrack's new effort 'lost in life'. i mean, in the first place there was not even the shadow of a doubt that i wanted it. but the fact that bridge9 was releasing this and the fact that they don't have an european shop, i knew i would have to get this either from per koro or from burnout store hamburg in order to avoid shipping costs from the states. checking the presing info over at bridge9 a small problem occured. i have the most limited colour-way of the first record 'darker half' on reaper, excluding the special stuff like fest pressings. it comes on opaque olive green. somehow bridge9 thought it would be a good idea to make the most common colour of 'lost in life' the exact same thing - opaque olive green. and as you know, if one orders from a distro it is very likely to get the most common version of a record. 
i mean, i'm a fan of the consistency in cover art but the same colour-way, that would be too much. asking markus at per koro he told me he only got the green version and i wasn't checking in at burnout anytime soon. so the visit at my sister's place in cologne came just at the right moment. i knew i could find some time sneaking over to underdog record store. i already posted about the 'converge - petitioning forever' lp i bought there and among some more i found this. in the racks they just ahd the aforementioned green wax but on the wall, in a display frame hung a copy of the second press. my copy from that on. man, that slab of vinyl looks ace. highlighter yellow with opaque neon green swirl. does this look venomous or what?!
musically they stood true to their sound of the first record. at first i was little bit unsure if i liked this approach or if i found this a bit boring. after repeated listenings i came to the conclusion that i like it. ha, lucky me! so this is really well executed nyhc. no surprises but no disappointments either. check out 'rot in your race' and you'll get a fair idea of what this album sounds like. pretty much standard packaging here. normal sleeve, insert and download code. solid all around. love the backpiece being a real spray painting of the tracklist. second press. 1000 copies made. bridge9. 2014.

Sonntag, 13. April 2014

avalanche - among beasts

in last year's december i wrote about avalanche's debut 7" called 'thanatos' and released on worship records. as you might are aware of, my mailorder of trust - per koro - functions also as a label on its own. markus/per koro puts out some real quality stuff and therefore i bought a lot of per koro releases in the past. withers, iron heel, deathrite and so on and so forth. man, i really loved 'thanatos' so naturally i was pleasantly surprised as i got to know about this release.
'among beasts' is basically a re-press of their demo from 2010. this demo was also called 'among beasts' but was self-released and came out on cassette only. the first three songs are from the said demo, come in a re-mastered version and then you get two more songs, of which i don't know the origin of. probably exclusively written for this lp-release or some more songs from the vault. doesn't matter anyway because the musical content rips. not as good as 'thanatos' but extremely worth picking up. check out 'nebuchadnezzar'. dirty doom/sludge/hardcore worship.
the packaging is real nice here. you get a screen-printed fold-around cover on nice thick cardboard, a thick paper insert with all the necessary information concerning this out-put, black dust sleeve with an attached download code and a lovely screen-printed b-side. yeah, good stuff! numbered out of 300 copies. mine is #279. get on it, copies still available. per koro. 2013.

Donnerstag, 10. April 2014

earth crisis - salvation of innocents

yes, the new earth crisis record. i've got to admit that i wasn’t overly excited by the news of an upcoming record. don’t really know why, i mean i love all their stuff excluding ‘slither’, especially the last two albums after their re-union (‘to the death’, of which i will post soon and ‘neutralize the threat’) were pretty great. but as soon as it dropped i got into the game because i can rely on earth crisis quality. i’m glad i did. this record is superb to say the least. every song has this typical earth crisis signature of mid-tempo metallic riffs with great hooks and a catchy or melancholic melody here and there. 
and there is not a single filler on this. to me ‘breed the killers’ is hard to top musically but they got damn close with ‘salvation of innocents’, if not even bettered it. karl buechner added another range to his voice here. i’m pretty lame trying to give this an adequate name but some chorus lines are sung in a different way. not this cheesy metalcore clear singing but kind of chanted. reminds me alot of some chorus parts burton c. bell did on fear factory's killer record 'obsolete' (what about a vinyl release of that?). and then there are the lyrics. the whole lyrics are committed to the fight against vivisection. the music is great on its own but together with the lyrics, this is where this record really grabs me. man, words to 'shiver' or 'final breath' give me a hollow feeling in the stomach and pictures of caged and tortured animals flash before my eyes. you can feel the band's disgust for this inhumane pharma and cosmetics industry, and if you can feel music you know it's good. educate yourself and overcome this terror in the name of science. check out 'shiver'!
for this album earth crisis moved from century media to candlelight records. seems odd as candlelight is more known for their black metal stuff but like they say, extremes meet. for vinyl purpose candlelight limited the rights to back on black records, known for vinyl re-issues of metal classics. this british collaboration between these labels worked out well as the presentation is pretty nice. thick cardboard gatefold sleeve, black dust sleeve and 180gr clear blue vinyl. only the cover art is not really my thing. looks like a bad computer game cover. but what do i know... 1000 made. candlelight records/back on black. 2014.

noteworthy is the fact that you can order a comic book based on the lyrical concept of 'salvation of innocents', called 'liberator' at kingsroad merch usa. check it out here. already ordered a copy.

Sonntag, 6. April 2014

expire - suffer the cycle

when i posted about expire's debut record called 'pendulum swings', i said the following: 'gotta look out for their 'suffer the cycle' 7". as you can see, i did. i bought this together with the grave maker record. as i searched my way through the hardcore 7"-section and stumbled upon this piece of vinyl, i was, not for the first time, tricked into thinking i scored something cool like a first press.
i didn't know anything about this record's pressing history. didn't know if there were more than one pressing and didn't know about colours. but what really counts is the music and i have to say that i'm happy to have listened to 'pendulum swings', which has really grown on me, at first. 'suffer the cycle' is good, no doubt, but i think it lacks a bit substance in comparison with the full length. but ultimately this is complaining on a high level. 'sleep lost' is a scorcher.
but now to the particular pressing i obtained at burnout store, hamburg. six feet under records did a third pressing recently and this is a copy of that press. 1000 on clear vinyl. so not really limited and 'cool' as i thought in the first place but that's ok. check numbers of the first and second press at the sfu page. six feet under records. 2011.

Donnerstag, 3. April 2014

grave maker - ghosts among men

if you have a local store that you visit quite regularly, you are probably familiar the upcoming phenomenon. when i hit the record store of my trust, burnout in hamburg to be precise, there is a certain modus operandi. i flick through the racks, pick all the records i am remotely interested in, if there's is enough time i listen to some of them and then i choose whatever i want real bad and whatever fits my financial frame i set that day.
grave maker's 'ghosts among men' was always among the records i picked for further judgement and was also always among the records i put back. i listened to some of their stuff before and knew that it was something i wanted but vinyl that was a bit more important always got in the way. incidentally i came across the pressing information of 'ghosts among men' and came to the conclusion that it was a copy of the rarest colour way which i put aside with persistency.
you know how it is with this odd breed called collectors, suddenly this record became way more important. at the next stop at burnout it was a sure thing that i would grab this baby if it was still there. as you can see it was. the music on display is real good. energetic and crunchy hardcore with great hooks. only thing that falls a bit short are the vocals. they sound a bit hoarse and feeble. one can hear that clearly when there are guest vocals to compare. the rest is brilliant though. check 'stronghold' here, rad song! clear green w/ black smoke vinyl out of 100 copies. victory records. 2010. 

this path we walk, we walk alone.
ghosts among men... we are ghosts among men.

Dienstag, 1. April 2014

unveil - a flame with nothing to feed on

after i added the 'narziss' record of the last post to my digital card and recognised that it was daniel of cobra records i want to buy from, i looked what else i could throw into the shopping bag. as i scrolled through the items, a particular little gem caught my attention. the last unveil record that came out on cobra. since i had the hypnopaedia 7" in my box, i always wanted it and the time had come.
unveil played a hardcore style with an obvious nineties vibe going on, some dark melodies and political lyrics and you have a pretty intense listen. in my eyes this band should have got more attention than they actually got back then. and this is the only way i can explain that the limited colours of this farewell record are still available. good for you.
check them out on their bandpage and then head directly over to the cobra store or the discogs shop and give this sucker a caring home. the album was pressed on three different versions. 200 black copies (even though i am not 100% sure about this quantity), 200 on black w/ white splatter vinyl and 100 on white vinyl. artwork looks pretty slick. swiss straight edge on the map. cobra records. 2012.