it's not that long ago that german hardcore legends from kassel released their return album after a fourteen year long hiatus. ryker's were back in 2014 with 'hard to the core'. well, it was an ok record. good, sure, but as i said back in this post i rather drop the needle on their classic nineties stuff. all this didn't hold me from being there when pre-orders for their new record 'never meant to last' went up. only one year after their last output.
just like it was the case with 'hard to the core', i was too slow for the most limited colour-way on blue marble out of 75 copies. so i snagged the second to most limited version on white with red and green marble vinyl. seems like white wax is my way to go with ryker's vinyl. four out of five coming on this colour. anyway, for 'never meant to last' the band experienced a substantial line-up change.
founding member kid-d left the band because of decreasing motivation and no time for recording new stuff, but no bad blood apparently. as a permanent stand-in ryker's introduced dennis of brightside fame. at first i doubted that he could replace kid-d properly. i mean, kid has a real characteristic voice and was therefore part of my love for the band. in then end all my worries have been washed away. dennis pulled it off real nicely.
generally the album is better than 'hard to the core' in my book. that mixture of old biohazard and sick of it all stuff is heavily to be felt and i really like that a lot. great to see that this band is still able to put out valuable music. at the beginning of the year i was lucky enough to catch them live with kid-d still being part of the ensemble. now i'm eager to see them with dennis on the mic. check some tunes here. 100 made. beatdown hardwear. 2015.
