two years ago i ordered a lot of records from victory records. if possible i try to avoid oversea orders because of the shipping rates and the custom duties for u.s. imports over here in germany. victory seems to have the only mailorder with moderate shipping costs. don't know how it works but they are not higher than sixteen bucks. so victory is a exception in rare cases. when i was ordering some between the buried and me and two emmure records (i posted about them this very month), i also included this little gem. and now these records are finally off the pile.
as you may know, i am an earth crisis fan. i have a copy of almost every recorded material of this syracuse powerhouse. so when victory announced a record store day re-press for 'firestorm' i really wanted a copy. they came on clear red and pressed out of 900 copies. not really rare for a hardcore band. thus i thought i would be an easy task to snag one. well, in the end i came up short and so i was really glad that in november 2013 still some copies of the victory exclusive clear with black smoke rsd 7"es were available.
i threw it into my cart and a few weeks later it was mine. i love that victory stays true to the actual looks of the releases for the most part. so the re-issue has only some minor changes, like the labels for example. sound-wise this is what you expect from this band. their very own brand of metallic hardcore which was deeply influential for a good chunk of the nineties hardcore movement. in the unlikely event you do not know it check 'firestorm' in full with this link. 110 copies made. victory records. 1993/2013.