Donnerstag, 29. Mai 2014

the lowest - divided

boy, i loved the self titled e.p. from this polish band called the lowest. it was so full of energy and some kind of novelty in today's hardcore scene. at least to me. usually when you listen to a new band you come up with some comparisons to put the band into a certain corner. in this case the lowest are the corner. some might say this is just another metallic hardcore band but to me, they have a sense for desperate passion that can only be evenly matched by harms way.
and yes "divided"keeps all this, what the self titled record promised. heavy mid-tempo riffs with that unique feeling for pumping, dark melodies. the lyrics are full of anger, angst and distress for a cold and relentless world, in which everyone seems to fight for their own. a dark picture painted by the greedy hands of a few, framed by the helplessness of us all. ah yes, "divided" makes me feel real poetic tonight. be sure to check them out right here.
the presentation is pretty lovely too. i like the simplistic cover art. it's vice versa to the first release of them now coming in white and black instead of black and white. the insert has an apocalyptic drawing by dawid rudziński on one side which simply looks awesome. the same picture is also etched to the b-side of the vinyl. superb! buy your copy from the d.r.a. webshop.
this record actually appeared in february this year but due to some delays of another record of my order i just recieved this two weeks ago. i wrote a mail in april to ask marcel/d.r.a. about the whereabouts of my order but got no reply. then, before two and a half weeks i wrote another, this time yet unpleasant, mail. i think marcel was just pretty busy and maybe forgot about answering the first mail, but i believe he wanted to make up for the hassle. so i got a special printed fold over cover with artwork by rafał wechter, that is supposed to come with black vinyl only. nice move, marcel! 100 copies made on this black w/ white marble vinyl. 50 copies on marbled clear red, 100 on clear blue and 250 on black vinyl. demons run amok ent. 2014.

Dienstag, 27. Mai 2014

xdigx - reality check split 7"

i ordered this 7" many moons ago from demons run amok entertainment together with another lp that will be put up real soon. a little coincidence that my next two posts will be recent demons releases too. but now to the split record of this post. the two bands sharing the sides of this vinyl plate are xdigx from france and reality check from poland.
reality check was the band that caught my attention here because i wrote about their 7" on ratel records last year. it was good enough to push me towards the decision of buying this new output too. their two songs on here, is what i had expected to get. no frills, nyhc worshipping hardcore. solid stuff. the french men from xdigx are playing stuff pretty much in the same vein but that's all the problem. just more of the same if you ask me.
again i'd like to point your attention to both bands bandcamp pages, so you can check for yourself. once arrived at the xdigx page, you can also expirience some songs of their full length on street survival records. as for the reality check counterpart, you can also listen to the above mentioned 7". there are 150 copies on this nice opaque gold vinyl and 250 copies on black. get them here. demons run amok ent./ratel records. 2013.

Samstag, 24. Mai 2014

grieved - runes split 7"

when i sent back the black grieved "samaritans" lp to italy, i was a little pissed to pay extra shipping for a mistake that was clearly not mine. in the meantime anchors aweigh released a split 7" between grieved and a band called runes. i thought hey, why not asking the anchors guy if he could throw in a copy to make up for the hassle? he was cool enough to do so.
in the end i didn't pay much for shipping because the post service lady must have made some mistake there. i paid even less than i would have to for domestic shipment. so i bought a digital download of that split, makes it even again i think. now to the music on vinyl. the grieved part is quality as i'm used to with that swedish band. dark and hunting stuff. check out the video to the song "mirage" right here.
runes is a band from brighton, uk. musically it seems an odd choice because they're playing some stoner metal, at least that's what i would call it. but as both bands are on anchors, it makes sense. not really my thing but check their song "depersonalisation" and forge your own opinion. 200 copies on multi-colour splatter vinyl. anchors aweigh records. 2013.

Mittwoch, 21. Mai 2014

grieved - samaritans

somewhere along the way of my last grieved-related post i wrote something like this: real problem was the record i ordered along. simply the wrong item. but that will be another story. so here is the story. together with the "ageing" 7" i bought their 12" e.p. called "samaritans". in the past it became some sort of habbit of some record labels chosing black as the most limited colour for their releases. such was the case with anchors aweigh records and the "samaritans" 12". as i simply don't give a fuck about black vinyl, i opted for the coloured version.
when my package came around i wasn't very delighted to see i got a black vinyl copy. i don't know what happened, either the order got mixed up or the anchors aweigh guy thought, it might be a favour to sent me a more limited version. anyway, some mails got exchanged, a little deal was carved and after two more weeks or so i got my desired record. and yeah, it was worth all the trouble.
if you liked "ageing", these "samaritans" are right up your alley. i love this dark, minor-laden (in a musical sense, of course) way of hardcore. it's passionate, it's angry, it's desperate, it's... ah well, simply listen for yourself and get involved! anchors aweigh recently upped a new pressing of "samaritans". check it out and buy your copy here. my copy is out of 300 and comes on a nice clear with solid white haze vinyl colour. it's a one-sided affair. anchors aweigh records. 2012.

Sonntag, 18. Mai 2014

sick of it all - death to tyrants rsd '14

of all those things re-pressed for record store day 2014, this was my number one want of the list. as i already gave information about the course of things at this year's rsd, you know i came up empty handed. after that i was anxious to find a copy on the good old internet. and boy, fuck those flippers! i came across a 55 bucks buy-it-now price over at ebay. and that's 55 fucking euro i'm talking. but then, last week, there was it. my very own copy.
supreme chaos records came to my rescue. it's a german d.i.y. metal label and i ordered from them in the past and they had this copy for a reasonable price in stock. i don't know if they run a physical store but if so, i can imagine all those metal heads walking by "death to tyrants" at record store day not knowing what to do with this, ha. my bliss. and it really looks great.
since i bought the german dead serious version i wanted a coloured think fast version. i always was unhappy with the ds-version because of the missing of the cover art, a track-list on the back and a proper insert. everything that the think fast version has. but the firt press coloured run on yellow w/ red splatter out of 300 was impossible to come by for reasonable money. but good things come to those who wait eventually. 500 copies on tri-coloured vinyl. think fast! records. 2006/2014.

p.s.: i want to part with my dead serious copy of "death to tyrants". if you're interested in a trade, get in touch! after a week from here, i'll put it up on ebay.

Freitag, 16. Mai 2014

aborted - the necrotic manifesto

i am always surprised how a band can maintain a certain sound when it never has a somewhat solid membership. you know, like soulfly. sure, their albums always change a little bit but there is a certain signature that makes you recognise a soulfly song without knowing it. and that's me speaking and not being a soulfly fan at all. to cut a long story short, soulfly shares this characteristic with another band, and that is aborted. this fine extreme metal band from belgium never had a steady line-up but if you put on an aborted record, with the first tune you know it's them. this brings us to their new effort called "the necrotic manifesto" and yes, it's definitely aborted. 
after some more or less unsatisfying records like "strychnine.213" or "slaughter and apparatus" and after the last record "global flatline" was a killer and a return to form, aborted managed to continue their kind of back-to-the-roots-program. it might be not as diverse as "global" but boy, it's some strong shit. it needed some spins but it really unfolded its pure dynamic. songs like "an enumaeration of cadavers", "sade & libertine lunacy" or "die verzweiflung" (with german lyrics) are death metal perfection. everyone remotely interested in fast and intelligent death should pick this one up.
i stumbled upon this over at nuclear blast and while this is a century media release, nb got their own shop exclusive, just like last time with "global flatline". the century media colour is mint green and looks pretty good too, but as i read "neon pink" i simply couldn't resist. looks sharp! the cover artwork is not as cool as with the last record but it still fits in with the aborted style very nicely. gatefold sleeve with all lyrics, 180gr vinyl and a cd with the whole album and even some bonus tracks (a converge cover of "concubine" among them) rounds out this cracker of a record. century media. 2014.

Mittwoch, 14. Mai 2014

whitechapel - our endless war

whitechapel has always been one of my favourite death metal bands. i love their complex riffing, the sick drumming and phil bozeman's signature voice. i loved their first record "the somatic defilement" that probably misses the musical ingenuity of more recent records, but was so rich with energy, darkness and aggression. it made me fell in love with this kind of modern death metal immediately. so of course i followed their musical path.
in my eyes the second record called "this is exile" paled in comparison to "the somatic defilement". one could feel that they wanted to choose a more complex and technical approach but it didn't work to one hundert percent for me. a couple of weak songs affected the overall impression. besides, "this is exile" only came on shitty picture disc. especially with "a new era of corruption" and with the self-titled record from 2012 whitechapel definitely found its very own style. and here we are with "our endless war" in 2014.
and boy, what should i say, this thing is fucking convincing. a monster coming your way. they became a tiny bit more catchy, if that term is proper in a whitechapel context, so it is easier to comprehend. but don't worry, whitechapel still isn't what your mom would sing along to after one listen. but enough talk. check out the title song, revolt and throw some stones! need to catch them live again.
i pre-ordered this along with the carnifex record of the last post and another pre-order that will be featured in the upcoming post. as this was a metal blade release that i ordered through nuclear blast, nb didn't get the most limited colour. indeed, you might say but such wasn't the case with the self-titled record two years ago. i came across an to 100 copies limited version at metal blade's ebay shop but at that point i already payed my stuff. ah well, that black w/ white splatter looks bad ass and i have a pretty low number. so i'm okay with that. 200 made. metal blade. 2014. 

Sonntag, 11. Mai 2014

carnifex - die without hope

back in the mid 00's a genre called deathcore was washed up on the shores of the interested listener. bands like job for a cowboy or whitechapel were bands of the first wave that more or less outgrew of their own invention. carnifex is a band that was among that first wave and their first two albums "dead in my arms" and "the diseased and the poisoned" (which never saw the vinyl treatment to all re-pressers out there) were pretty good and are standing on my cd shelf. i catched them live back then and boy, they were a blast.
after these two, the third record "hell chose me" never found its way into my possession. that was because of a time were money was pretty tight and i had to source out very carefully what i should buy or not. since then i lost track of them. i mean, i heard of the release of "until i feel nothing" in 2011 but wasn't really interested to listen to it.
they even went on hiatus as i read about in the label's print magazine blast!. but now they are back with a vengeance. i saw this record up in the new section at nuclear blast shop when i was looking for new stuff. and i was thinking back and forth if i should get this or not. i checked some songs on the net and they were good, sure, but good enough to put money towards this? the answer was yes obviously. and i'm glad i did.
after repeated listenings this thing rips from start to finish. of all those deathcore veterans, carnifex are the closest to their roots, which is in their case a good thing. old school death metal tunes, some black metal hints, the right dose of breakdowns and scott lewis's sick voice make for a fantastic modern death metal record. check "dragged into the grave". killer! and the colour way is really nice too. it's not the promised pink, more a lilac which looks lovely held up against the light. 100 copies made. nuclear blast records / cargo records. 2014.

Donnerstag, 8. Mai 2014

die young - chosen path

at the very beginning of the year my favourite bulgarian label, ugly and proud, announced its upcoming release. as i am a fan of die young i was pretty happy about two things. firstly that they rebanded after five years and secondly that u&p would release a 12" while the us version comes on the 7" format. over the months niki/u&p revealed more and more details. pictures of the covers, the vinyl and so on. and then, three weeks ago, i had a package in the mail.
i know that i said i would post about this "next" week in my last die young post. one became three but i needed some time to listen to it properly. in the end this is classic die young stuff. fast hardcore punk with a strong metallic edge to it. relentless and straight forward. "chosen path" needed some spins but it definitely sunk its hooks into me. you can stream that whole thing and decide for yourself wether you like it or not.
the presentation is solid all around. instead of a common sleeve the interested customer gets a folded piece of thick matte paper with an actual spine. nice idea. the picture on the inner cover is actually niki walking in the cold bulgarian winter. three colours pressed. 100 copies on black vinyl, 250 copies on clear orange and 150 on marbled brown vinyl. all coming with the well known die young clock/skull logo etched to the b-side. ace!  get your copy here. ugly and proud records. 2014.

Dienstag, 6. Mai 2014

parkway drive - atlas

so this is actually my record store day post because this nice find is what i purchased on that said and sad saturday in april 2014. but let me begin with the beginning. of course i heard news that my favourite physical record store, burnout record store in hamburg, would partake of this event the world knows as rsd 2014. so i checked at the internet what would come our way this year. three releases i was interested in. two victory record releases and one think fast! release. i know that burnout always has a decent hardcore selection so i was pretty sure they would have some of them. so i talked my girlfriend into standing up early for the thirty minutes drive into the city, dropped her at some clothing store and made my way to my destination. i arrived there five minutes before opening. so of course i had to put my ass into the line and due to the comparatively small salesroom they only let ten to fifteen people in at a time. after approximately twenty minutes i came in with the second row... and... tata... nothing! not one single record. aaarrgghhh, fuck!
then i watched some dudes asking the shopkeep if they had shot their bolt. he replied that they would fill the racks with the remaining stuff in one or two hours. one or two hours, man, waiting one or two hours was a task to think about carefully before setting into action. as i didn't know any other record store in hamburg with only half a good hardcore selection, i came to the conclusion that i should take my chance, as remote as it may be. so i grabbed some records from the regular racks that i always wanted to check out, went to a free turntable right next to the rsd shelfs, waited and watched the scenario. i have to admit that this was quite amusing. people lurking around the vinyl, shifting one foot to the other, taking records, thinking, putting them back, taking them again. entertaining and kind of making the wait worth it. in the end i only waited 45 minutes but in vain unfortunately. only the earth crisis re-press of "gomorrah's season ends" of which i have the original. in my despair i went to two other stores in the near of which i already assumed they would have nothing but just in case. nothing again of course.
to make up for the mess i thought i might as well check saturn, hamburg. saturn is a big electronic warehouse with branches all over europe. the store in hamburg has a good metal vinyl section and an ok alternative section with some hardcore stuff. so i knew they wouldn't have rsd releases but maybe i could find some else. and just look what i found. the latest parkway drive album called "atlas". i struggled with it in the past. i was pretty close to order it through kingsroad merch when it came out but lost interest somewhere along the way. a failure in hindsight. i loved their first outputs and "killing with a smile" is one of my all time favs but you know how it is when a band gets too big and everybody loves them and they headline every important tour over here. they just don't seem special anymore. yeah, foolish i was. this record is a cracker.
check out "sleight of hand" and "old ghosts / new regrets" and i spare you my talk of how great these songs are because you will experience it for yourself. i was really lucky that saturn had the rarest colour way in stock. marbled grey out of 300 180gr double lp's with an etched d-side. i don't know how they got it. it had sold out quickly in 2012 and it wasn't sitting there before as i know by my own eyes. also it wasn't re-pressed as far as i can tell. but in some weird way this double lp found its path into my hands. lucky me and justice at last, ha! epitaph records. 2012.

Sonntag, 4. Mai 2014

the acacia strain - above/below

a new acacia strain offering and i am very sceptical to say the least. news came to me through a pretty remote channel. i scrolled down the new in stock list at per koro and came across it. that was cool in a way because it spared me the torture of waiting of a pre-order process. instead of that it was quite exciting not to know any song or the colour it would come on.
at first when it arrived i was pretty delighted to see the lovely colour way matching the cover art nicely. but then came the tricky part. dropping the needle on it. the last record "death is the only mortal" was kind of exhausting. but not the rewarding type. so you may understand my joy as i heard the first song "above". up-tempo, face melting riffs and a bone crushing breakdown. hell yeah, this feels like "wormwood" and "death is the only mortal" never happened and they continued right after "continent".
the second song "below" is not quite as strong but the apocalyptic feeling is definitely there and they finally know how to keep their songs interesting again. the line-up changes had been pretty healthy in my eyes. "above/below" is a great appetiser and i'm craving for the upcoming release. let it come. this was supposed to be a brown colour but it came out a little different. more orange if you ask me. 600 made. rise records. 2013.

Freitag, 2. Mai 2014

all for nothing - what lies within us

all for nothing is a hardcore band from the netherlands. to anyone who is remotely familiar with european hardcore, this is no big news because they are around since 2004 or something and had been releasing records through numerous labels, such as swell creek, demons run amok and gsr music. i also have their two previous records but in favour of currency i start here with their latest output, "what lies within us".
and what a good album we have here. lots of great hooks, sing-alongs and some melancholic melodies make for a very good modern hardcore record. the only problem that may occure is that "what lies within us" will probably wear out fast. i mean the songs are all very well executed but there is nothing novel that stands out for this album and that makes you want to listen to it over and over again. but you know what you get here and that's more than solid.
i pre-ordered this over at gsr music distro. the most limited colour was black vinyl out of 100 copies. yeah black, so i shit on that and went for the white w/ blue splatter vinyl out of 150 copies. especially the b-side with the more subtle splatter looks real nice. another 150 copies of white w/ black splatter also out there. listen to 'luctor et emergo' and buy your copy here. gsr music. 2014