cattle decapitation - monolith of inhumanity

the last piece of the puzzle. i really was in pleasant anticipation of the release of the last full length record of metal blade's 'decade of decapitation' re-issue series. actually i wanted to order at nuclear blast. as usual with the exception of 'the harvest floor'. i ordered that one from mb's german ebay store because of the collector's box. so after i was back from london i checked nuclear blast's new vinyl section. a copy of 'monolith' was there, only for a quite high price considering the price tags for 'humanure' and 'karma.bloody.karma'.

furthermore one was not able to choose between the two usual colour options for the european re-presses. weird. so i headed again over to the metal blade ebay store. no problem with finding the desired item. now one last conflict appeared. metal blade always pressed a splatter vinyl version limited to 200 copies and a colour in colour 'merge' vinyl version limited to 300 copies for the european pressing. usually i opted for the less limited colour for personal preferences. this time both colour options were splatter vinyls. so i thought back and forth what to take. i could choose between 'golden landfill' and 'world landfill'. the choice was an easy one after all, as i read that the 'world landfill' colour was a split coloured pattern with splatter.

i didn't care that the 'golden landfill' version was more limited as the look of this colour way is way better. especially after i saw some pics of the golden splatter on the net. musically they took all the exellent ingredients, they already worked with on 'harvest floor' and took them to next level. the drum sound and the drumming itself are an aural pleasure to say the least. the songs are played crisp and tight with the right dosage of melody in their mix of extreme music. 'monolith of inhumanity' is their masterpiece and i'm really excited if they are able to reproduce such a great work with future exploits.

on a funny side note, metal blade's first pressing of 'monolith' came on a colour pattern called 'world landfill' too. only they changed the split colours vice versa. the first pressing came with opaque green and clear blue and the re-issue comes in opaque blue and clear green. i stumbled upon this re-reading lenny's post about the first pressing from 2012. the gatefold cover seems to be quite the same though. 300 copies made. metal blade. 2012/2014.

with this final record the box set is complete. here is a pic of the whole set.

excellent job, metal blade!

high on fire - the art of self defense

in the moment i'm really working on putting together the high on fire records set. with this purchase here i have now three and still three to go. but i know this will work out pretty well as all the other records i need, 'sorrounded by thieves', 'blessed black wings' and 'snakes for the divine' are still available from various sources.

in my hands here is the re-press of high on fire's first full length 'the art of self defense' from 2001. when i was lastly in hamburg's finest record store, burnout records, buying mastodon's 'call of the mastodon' record i also looked through the high on fire section. among other was sitting this baby. i was looking at it thinking about getting it or not.

it had a hefty price tag of almost thirty euros on it and so i wasn't sure about it. in the end i put it aside hoping i could find an less expensive copy on the internet. time went by and so did my london trip. after that i had some money left to burn and of course i would put it towards some new records.

as a constant reader you might remember that i bought a clear purple copy at burnout store back then. time went by and at some point in mid 2015 i came across some copies which were on sale at the southern lord eurpean shop. they had almost every colour of the re-press for lousy 15 bucks on offer. considering that i got the clear purple copy for twice as much, i couldn't pass up to buy an upgrade copy.

i took the brown version and gave my purple one to a friend. after i threw it on my turntable the first thing that came to my mind was, that this sounded doomier than the other records i knew from high on fire, 'death is this communion' and 'de vermis mysteriis'. slower and a more sleep like approach. but as this is the first post-sleep record that matt pike worked on, this seems natural.

this re-press also includes the two songs from the original 7“ that tee pee records put into the second press package of their release of 'the art of self defense'. these two sound more like the style they developed after 'the art...', faster, more energetic. but don't get me wrong, i really like this first album alot. it just sounds different to their other stuff. furthermore their first demo recordings included as well. real fanboy package.

southern lord really did an outstanding job with this re-press. massive gatefold sleeve of thick and sturdy card. it's that thick that i couldn't store it in my usual reclosable pvc sleeves, because i couldn't close them up. had to use an slip pvc sleeve here. a nice 24-page booklet attached to the inner gatefold with many pictures of the band and a poster. even the card inside the sleeve is purple coloured. top notch presentation! the new colouring of the cover art and the whole package all around favoured the semi-translucent brown of the vinyl. put up against the light it looks more like a dark red. 500 made. southern lord. 2001/2013.

die young invade split 7"

a german saying goes 'all good things are three'. taking this literally, i obtained another record from ewald. the third one and another low priority record, that i knew would come in great condition and for a good price, when taking it from ewald. i'm talking about another die young release. this time in the shape of their split with invade.

i never heard anything about the band invade nor did i even heard a song of them. so this was kind of interesting to check out. they play some nineties metal influenced hardcore. morning again or arkangel came to my mind. at least this my impression listening to their one and only song on this split. solid stuff. the die young part was a bit disappointing. not that the songs weren't good, but they are also on their full length 'graven images' which i already knew. so nothing new to me here.

the record cover is pretty grim, depicting an third world kid on a landfill looking for food or other useful things to make it through the day. while in the background you can see some kind of combine piling up the waste of the western so called civilisation. the back cover is just as intense showing a big slum with a mother and her kid in front of it. the art reflects to one hundred percent the messages of both bands. well thought out. 1000 copies made with 125 on blue splatter vinyl, 275 on green white split vinyl and 600 on white vinyl. double or nothing records. 2007.

grave maker - demolition

with the purchase of the record of the last post 'grave maker - bury me at sea', i surely wouldn't leave it be with only one vinyl platter. checking ewald's other stuff i came across a 7“ that was destined to be the perfect match to grave maker's first full length. their first release called the 'demolition' 7“.

i foremost bought this piece of vinyl in order to complete my grave maker collection. i didn't really listened to some songs or was out for a specific pressing. ewald had a coloured copy and so i took the chance to garb it for a reasonable price. music wise this is no real surprise because all the songs also found their way on the full length.

but they are good anyway so check out 'the boatman' and rock out in your living room like crazy. the record was released on copper lung records. to me an unknown label. i don't know about other releases of them or if they are even existing anymore. my copy is of the first press. here is the breakdown: 100 copies on black vinyl, 150 copies on blue vinyl and 250 copies on my clear purple vinyl. also a green second press in existence. copper lung records. 2008.

grave maker - bury me at sea

i got introduced to grave maker a year and a half from now, when i obtained 'ghosts among men' at burnout store. since then i was looking out for their record preceeding 'ghosts...'. but to put things into perspective, i took these photos here pretty much exactly one year from now according to their digital date. so it wasn't like it took me long to get this album, it just took me way too long to write about it.

after i bought a born from pain, a bitter end and a dead reprise record  from ewald at deadformat.net and everything went so smoothly, i looked through his remaining stuff to see what else i could want. so i came across this nice copy of 'bury me at sea'. the musical content is just as good as on 'ghosts...', very solid and very energetic hardcore with some melodic hints. check out 'wreckage' and 'it's raining again', the best songs of the record if you ask me.

'bury me at sea' was released on several pressings and versions. even a european and a picture disc release out there. i have an organized crime version of the first american vinyl press from 2010. i think it was 800 copies on this nice clear gold colour. nice touch that the a-side and b-side label are showing the coins laid on the eyes of the dead sailor from the cover. that said, i really like the cover art. great comic approach. Not as cheesy as their 'ghosts...' cover art. organized crime liscensed by think fast! records. 2008.

sick of it all - last act of defiance

in the past weekend i've moved the big stuff into my new apartment and put things where they belong. so now i'm finally able to listen to music from my turntable again. only piece that is missing now is internet access. momentairly i write up the posts on my comp, and take the data somewhere i have access to upload the whole thing at blogger. annoying procedure but time and a responsible technician will solve this problem soon. so now to the record on display.

the new effort of sick of it all called 'last act of defiance'. as long as i'm concerned, i think it's safe to say that soia are my favourite nyhc band. they released my all time fav nyhc record ('scratch the surface') and i love their socio-critical attitude and their more punk approach to hardcore. so actually i was pretty stoked to hear news of a new record. especially as my favourite producer tue madsen would handle recording matters. so many favourites here.

the new album is a grower if you ask me. i was a bit disappointed by the first listen. nothing that really stuck in my head. after a few more listens that impression started to change and after a few more, i'm pretty sure about the album. first of all it's a great one. to me it cannot top the more recent stuff such as 'death to tyrants' and 'based on a true story', but it easily outguns their fat wreck era stuff. check out some snippets of the brand new output here for a healthy dosage of hardcore reality.

this time i learned not to ignore emp mailorder, asi did with the latest madball record (check the last post entry). emp sold an exclusive red vinyl version limited to 200 copies, which has sold out by now. nice 180gr vinyl housed in a thick card sleeve and coming with a free cd of the album. century media. 2014.

madball - hardcore lives

yes, i know. i'm again pretty late to a new hardcore release. i mean, not that late but still a considerably time span. but let me start with the obvious. the beginning. when i first heard that madball would release their new album through nuclear blast, i was quite happy because nb is situated in germany and as a frequent customer that i am, i believed i could get a limited colour way hassle free. stupid me. as the time came around for pre-order i browsed through their shop but i couldn't find any colour option for the record. just black vinyl.

i began to wonder if they actually pressed a coloured vinyl version at all. i fired off an e-mail to nb asking about the coloured vinyl matter. the response was, that there wasn't any plans for such platters. why this guy at nb didn't tip me off that there was a coloured version, only sold through a different retailer is beyond me. so at that point i assumed there was only black vinyl and suddenly the new madball album became not that overly important. i knew i could get a black copy at any time and somewhere inside i hoped for a coloured second press.

time went down the river and one night while i was killing time on the net checking some unknown internet distros, i came across depot mailorder from a small town near my hometown called wernigerode. scrolling through the m-section i saw the impossible. a red vinyl copy of madball's new effort. fuck that. this is what i get for ignoring all social networks. as i read on i learned that this was a special emp mailorder version out of 100 copies. i ordered quickly only to get an e-mail the other day with message of it being sold out. damn it! emp had sold out on them long before also and so i was forced to play the waiting game, because discogs prices started at €44, which was defenitely too high for me.

fortunately i had not to wait long. a discogs message came my way with a new copy at €29. i thought this to be reasonable and pulled the trigger. and finally here it is. and what a scorcher it is. definitely my favourite post comeback ('legacy') album. they managed to throw some new, more melodic elements into their hefty groove and breakdown orientated hardcore mix. they consequently walked the path further, started with their 'rebellion' 7" two years ago. check 'nbnc' and 'born strong' with candace from walls of jericho (boy, don't want to mess with her though). my copy came with a poster and a promo card. don't if that is part of the emp version or if the discogs seller threw them in. anyway, go get this! nuclear blast. 2014.

war from a harlots mouth - in shoals

war from a harlots mouth is one of my favourite german bands out there. actually, they probably were. last year they stated to go on an indifinite hiatus, which probably means they called it a day. we will see, if i will witness a return in the future. but whatever will come, they will always have a special spot in my heart. a good friend of mine introduced them to me by playing their split with molotov solution to me in 2006. he actually preferred the molotov solution part but the wfahm side really stuck in my mind.

a year later i moved from my small home town to leipzig, germany. to those not in the know, leipzig is a major city in saxony with half a million inhabitants, and coming from a twenty thousand people town situated in the middle of nowhere, this felt like a whole new world to me. where is the link to wfahm, you might ask. well, my first concert i went to in leipzig was a wfahm show. that was a new expirience to me. i didn't have to plan a trip with friends to a show. it was in the middle of the week and i could simply go there. i went there alone and had a blast moshing around and i felt like finally being on the pulse of time. good times.

to the great music on this vinyl platter i can only say, that this one really grew on me. after 'mmx', this my favourite release of them. and what a strong one. by the time wfahm released it, 'in shoals' felt bulky and exhausting. the predecessor 'transmetropolitan' was fast, colourful and real fun. the progress to 'in shoals' was quite radical with this album now being very dark and demanding. but now, after five years of its initial release this baby was and is just a perfect piece of recorded music. the way they play their songs with such an intensity reminds me alot of converge.

as a constant reader of this blog you might know that i actually have this record on vinyl already. i bought it as a re-press on double vinyl with 'transmetropolitan' on the second disc. this version right here is of the first press and actually the rarest variant of it. 110 on 'blue nature', 114 on clear orange, 117 on pink and an unknown amount of black vinyl. i snagged this for a good price on ebay. now go listen to 'appropriate tools' and to 'scully' and get a copy of this album on your favoured format. lifeforce records. 2009.

strife - in this defiance

shortly after i could obtain strife's first full length 'one truth' via ebay, i also bid successfully on 'in this defiance'. it was one of those records i was after for some time already, and so i was pretty excited as it popped up on the bay. of course i had to reach deeper in my pocket for it, but that's just the way it goes. sleep on it and pay up. despite that, i was really happy as it finally showed up and i was able to listen to this classic in the best way of all, on vinyl.

'in this defiance' is a damn strong record all the way through. not one stinker on this album. check out 'force of change' and 'will to die' with chino moreno. if you're now convinced you need this nineties, straight edge hardcore monument, you better head right over to victory records and order the recent re-press on purple vinyl before it's too late again.

according to deadformat.net the victory first pressing came on 1019 copies on a colour called 'putty'. some copies came out on a more blue end of the spectrum and some came out more greyish. as you can see mine is one of the latter colour. i love these putty colours. victory seems to have specialised in these. i'll have a lot of these babies to post about in the future. but that's a different story. what sucks for the here and now is my dent in the lower left corner (or lower right corner looking from the back of the cover) of the sleeve. we'll see if it bothers me enough to go for an upgrade copy. victory records. 1997.