electric wizard - witchcult today

my fifth electric wizard record is the band's sixth studio album called 'witchcult today. it was the first one that wasn't as easily available as the ones before. no german store was carrying a coloured vinyl version of this album. so i had to search for them on second hand market places. the first i seek in such cases is usually discogs. when i looked to find what specific colour way would take my fancy, there was one that definitely got me hooked.

a lovely pink vinyl pressing which i had to make mine. fortunately i found a seller from germany who offered it for a price that i could live with. listening to this record, i am not to 100 percent sold on it. it's the second album with the new line-up and the dirty, melodic rock side to their doom metal sound is more prominent here. don't get me wrong, it's a real good album. i simply prefer their earlier work, is all. but i unconditionally recommend 'witchcult today' to any electric wizard fan.

for this record the band recorded the songs entirely on seventies vintage equipment. i mean, if i didn't read this somewhere, i wouldn't hear the difference but the fact is pretty cool on its own. the artwork ties in seamlessly. the pictures must have been taken with seventies camera equipment as well or been at least reworked to look like pictures of that time. they have that specific grainy look. the hot 180g pink vinyl is definitely a winner. don't know how much have been made. rise above records. 2007/2010.

gojira - from mars to sirius

gojira. i take a deep breath and take in that name and what it stands for for a second. alright, now let's start this post off with the history of this band and me. for the first time i came across gojira was on lenny's blog the emeging addiction at some point in 2012. lenny stated that these four french guys were one of his favourite bands and as his and my taste in death metal bands are pretty much alike, i thought i should check them out. i did so but it wasn't grabbing me really and so i wrote them off.

i didn't care much for this band the following years until in december 2015 nuclear blast announced pre-orders for re-presses of three of four gojira full lengths. i saw them at one of my regular checks over at the nb new additions section. they were all coming on some nice colour vinyl and now, as they were available, something in the back of my head told me to re-visit them. that procedure is not unknown to me. when availability isn't an issue anymore because of fancy re-presses, i re-check bands to see if i probably miss something great. sometimes it works for me, sometimes not.

the first song i listened to after i decided to give gojira another try was 'ocean planet', the first song of 'from mars to sirius'. as soon as the first riff kicks in i was rivited by it. i stopped in the motion and like paralysed, i sat in awe for the 5:34 minutes the song lasts. i knew immediately that this wasn't your ordinary death metal and ordered straight away. gojira has a certain song writing that is forceful, slowly-melancholic and always sophisticated right down to the smallest detail. indeed, the lyrical concept of this album is outstanding and is in no way inferior to the musical side. if i get it right, the story is about a resurrection of a dead planet by inhabitants of the binary star sirius.

i did a bit of research but only came up with vague informations. sirians, entities of the star sirius, are part of an alien culture which assists the earth and all its creatures. they usually are strongly connected to doplphins and whales. through the singing of the whales they channel the energies of the earth. this link may explain the whale on the cover and other references. i really love this story of nature conservancy linked to these supernatural beings of higher consciousness. this album is flawless to me. the presentation is nice too. fancy matte cardboard for the cover with lovely artwork and sharp clear with orange and white splatter vinyl. 500 copies made. more of gojira soon. listenable records. 2016.

conan - revengeance

conan is back again. this british, steroid pumped, low tuned and dripping-with-blood-of-its-enemies monster of a doom metal band strangles us all with this fourth album aptly called 'revengeance'. just as if only vengeance, respectively only revenge wouldn't be enough, this newly coined word gives the listener a glimpse of what is to be expected from conan's number four.

in november 2015, when napalm records announced the release of 'revengeance' for the end of january 2016, there was not the faintest shadow of a doubt that i would be all over the pre-order. napalm offered a lame silver coloured vinyl option and a lesser limited orange splatter variant. napalm seems to go the same boring way as nuclear blast records, pressing all their records on either gold or silver coloured vinyl.

for my part, i am really annoyed by this procedure so i opted for the lesser limited splatter platter. a lot of folks did so as well because the splatter lp has sold out while the silver one is still available. anyway, musically conan crushes. you call this too repetitive? you call this too slow? you call this too rediciously down tuned? well, you better get out because this is what conan is all about. and they are brilliant at it.

probably they cannot outgun my favourite album 'monnos' but 'revengeance' is definitely second best. six songs full of relentless heaviness and hypnotic riffs. the soundtrack to thulsa doom's beheading, if you know what i mean. the artwork is colourful again and just like the 'monnos' art, this looks stunning. especially the inner gatefold is very nice with its flowing lava and thick smoke. 300 copies on 180g orange with black splatter vinyl. napalm records.

converge - caring and killing

i bought the converge 'the long road home' dvd last year and it was real fun to watch these old digitalised vhs excerpts of long gone shows in the nineties. as this is almost pre jane doe era stuff played there exclusively, i took out my copies of 'petitioning forever' and 'unloved and weeded out' to listen to them more closely than before. i don't know if these live shoots from the dvd were what i needed to see the converge nineties stuff in a different light, but suddenly i listened to them a lot.

finally i seemed to understand these great songs. therefore i planned to get the 'caring and killing' compilation on vinyl in the foreseeable future. i had an internet option but wasn't sure if it was a coloured vinyl version. when i was in kiel recently and payed blitz record store a visit, i was actually looking for some birthday presents for a friend. looking through the racks i also came across this lovely copy of 'caring and killing'.

i opened the shrink to find that the vinyl was coloured and at this moment i knew, i had a new addition to the converge collection. it even was a bit cheaper as my internet option but as this hydra head re-press is pretty pricey in general, it wasn't a steal either. this compilation was actually an europe exclusive released by lost and found records in 1995. lost and found overpriced it and thus the band let hydra head re-release in 1997 for a fair price, making the l&f release obsolete. just like ignite with 'call on my brothers', another band that got beef with this german label over an eu-release.

anyway, this lovely compilation consists of the debut album 'halo in a haystack', three compilation songs, the 'where have all the flowers gone' demo from 1992 and a previously unreleased recording session from 1994. like mentioned above hydra head released this in 1997 on cd only and decided six years later to finally give it the vinyl treatment. the gatefold comes on some slick glossy cardboard and the records on clear with black splatter of 180g quality vinyl. 700 copies made if jake's info is correct. unfortunately my copy didn't have the jane doe sticker on the shrink. hydra head records. 1997/2013.

the carrier - no love can save me

i really like the carrier. that being said i snagged copies of their two full lenghts pretty early when i got into record collecting. i love those two albums and therefore i made a mental note to get their two 7"es when given the chance to. well, i wasn't that straightforward when it came to set that plan into action.

if i really wanted it and pursued the purchase consistently, i could have hold a copy in hands way earlier. anyway, i recently got one of those discogs messages where they told me that a copy was available for a decent price and i finally pulled the trigger on it. the seller came from europe and so shipping was reasonable too.

the three songs on this plastic platter are just what i love about the carrier. melancholic intensity with the raw energy that is hardcore. simply a great band. a shame that they called it a day in 2012. now i need to chase that first self-titled 7" from 2007. this one here is limited to 1000 copies on grey vinyl. deathwish inc. 2008.

hate - solarflesh: a gospel of radiant divinity

animate records is a fine, small d.i.y. metal label from germany. they specialised in lovely produced vinyl releases of metal albums that have been long out of print or which didn't even recieve any vinyl treatment in the first place. furthermore they have a good distro of which i ordered a few things in the past. i also call one animate release, in the form of the kataklysm 'shadows and dust' re-issue, my own.

as i recieve the regular animate newsletter i manage to stay informed about new releases. so when i read the newsletter referring to the vinyl release for the 2013 hate album called 'solarflesh: a gospel of radiant divinity', i was quite interested. it was put out on napalm records on cd-only and the description said death metal massacre with a slight oriental edge to it. that sounded good and so i ventured over to the tube to check them out.

after a few tunes i knew that this was right up my alley and when i saw the die-hard version that animate was offering, i was sold. i have listened a fair amount of times to 'solarflesh' by now and can only say it's a brilliant album. sophisticated tech death metal with a pitch black attitude. the oriental instruments and melodies are definitely there and give the whole album a very ominous feeling.

the only problem i have with hate from time to time, is that they sound a lot like behemoth. that feeling only strengthens by the fact that both bands are from poland and have similar stage appearances. both were founded in the early nineties, so they probably influenced each other. anyway, detached from that thought, this album rips from start to finish.

the presentation is a scorcher on its own. the cover is a trifold affair, comes with a super thick spine and looks pretty sharp artwork-wise. the first record, to which the full album is pressed, comes on gorgeous black and white merge with oxblood splatter vinyl. what a beauty. the second disc is actually pretty useless if you look on the content. three bonus tracks with two of them being annoying sound scapes and one real, admittedly good song. but the the screen print looks ace! 100 copies made. animate records. 2016.

born of osiris - soul sphere

actually this album is accessible since last year's october or so and as i am a fan, i was really looking forward to this new piece from born of osiris. when pre-orders went live, there was no vinyl version but because sumerian pressed all their previous albums to vinyl, i was pretty sure that there would come a grooved plastic platter version. and it did.

the catch was that the vinyl version had an in-store date of march 2016 and it was available through killer merch only, which is an u.s. store, which meant high shipping rates. in the end i bit every single one of these bullets, because there was no alternative. when i actually was waiting for a baroness record in january, which i will soon write about, i was very pleasantly surprised at 'soul sphere' already showing up. two months before its expected release date.

musically this is what born of osiris is best at. technical death metal with synths, catchy melodies and this weird outer space/higher level of consciousness feel to it. this record is flawless and although they will probably never again reach the heights of 'the discovery', 'soul sphere' represents everything that makes me love this chicago based band. stream the whole record here.

the presentation of born of osiris' fifth album is outstanding. the cover comes in a nice tri-fold version and provides enough space for a typical piece of art, which the band uses for every release. there is an extra insert for all the lyrics and a download card for your digital amusement. the winner of the package is the lovely clear yellow and red merge vinyl, described as 'sunburst' vinyl. yummy. 500 copies pressed. sumerian records.

terraformer - creatures

i discovered belgium's terraformer at the end of last year and was blown away by their very own kind of post-metal-punk-whatever instrumental core. when i stumbled upon their first album 'the sea shaper' at the narshardaa store, i also saw the follow-up - 'creatures' - on clear vinyl. as i am not the biggest fan of that colour-way, i looked to see if there were other pressings around.

by doing so i came across revolvermann records and their web-site. this german label co-released 'creatures' and thus were offering copies through their e-store. they happened to also have 'the sea shaper' record and 'creatures' on clear with black splatter vinyl in stock, all together in a bundle option. did i need any more reasons to get them both? obviously not.

'creatures' see terraformer step up their game. everything is a nuance better, a nuance fresher. the band understands not to get lost in their spheric soundscapes but split your head with a catchy and heavy riff here and there. top notch album! check it out here. the artwork is formidable as well. dark and mysterious, a perfect match to the music engraved in the vinyl. 150 copies made. dunk records. revolvermann records. emotionally unstable records. 2014.

impel - writhe in pain

to be perfectly honest, this was an unconsidered impulse buy. it was one of that ebay auctions that nobody semmed to be interested in, i watched it and at the end i put in the minimum bid and won. i solely based this purchase on the bands written into the auction description so that persons like me could categorise impel into a vague direction.

i think it was judge and verse but i'd rather compare them to quicksand, and quicksand plays a brand of hardcore i am not really interested in. so does impel. their stuff doesn't do anything for me. as copies of 'writhe in pain' fetch the insane average amount of one euro on discogs, it doesn't even make sense to commit the effort of trying to sell it.

'why even write about it?', you might ask. well, my task the past months was to clear my backlog and because impel's 'writhe in pain' is part of this backlog, i couldn't ease my obssessive mind if i didn't do this post. according to the date where i took this digital picture, i bought this 7" two years ago. now the backlog is cleared with this record, one of the oldest sitting there. ammunition records. 1996.

post scriptum: now i have seventeen more or less recently aquired records (starting in last year december) sitting on my shelf, waiting to be blogged about. i'll try to get to the point, where i only write about the most recent additions. kind of exciting to me, ha!   

goldust / deathrite - split 7"

i really like dresden's deathrite. their latest declaration of hate going by the name of 'revelation of chaos', was a real blast and in the meantime i was even able to snag a limited clear copy of their first self-titled 12" release on per koro records. the only vinyl release which was missing, was their split with goldust. fortunately to obtain this slab of wax didn't prove to be a difficult task.

actually i don't know where i got this from. either way i ordered it at per koro or cobra records, the two labels the split appeared on. as i ordered from both in the recent past and i somehow lost my memory concerning this matter, both seem to be possible. whatever, the deathrite part is definitely to my taste. released between the sel-titled mini-lp and the first full length 'into extinction', these two songs deliver finest death 'n' roll.

the song 'plagues' also found its way on 'into extinction' in a re-recorded form. the band this split is shared with, is goldust. the band isn't active anymore. goldust was founded in 2005 in münster, germany and played their last show in late 2014. they described their own music as hardcore noir and i think this description is pretty apt. some crsut-laden, dark stuff that doesn't really grab me, though.

you can check their still existing bandcamp page and listen to almost all of their recorded output. the packaging for this split 7" is pretty clever. the centre label shows the two sides of a moon that is the background for the house of the die-cut cover. nice idea. there is also a grey marbled vinyl version floating around. don't know how many were pressed on clear vinyl. per koro records. cobra records. 2012.  

zero mentality / the heartbreak motel - virtues and vices

another zero mentality release. the last i was missing. the collection is complete currently. i hope they will put the gear into action and come around with new stuff soon, so that i have a new piece of wax to add to the pile. for now this split release with the heartbreak motel is the last piece of the puzzle. i stumbled upon it on ebay and got it for next to nothing really.

the split came out in between 'invite your soul' from 2008, which is my favourite album of zm, and 'black rock' from 2009, which is very good but takes the last pposition in my personel ranking of the three full lengths. logically the two songs on display lean more towards the rock induced hardcore-metal-mish-mash of the 'black rock' record. i still really dig them. check 'the white hand of moses'.

the other band of the split - the heartbreak motel - was pretty much unknown to me. they are a punk-rock band from recklinghausen, germany. or better, they have been. they split up last year playing their last show in bochum together with zm. anyway, their part of the split is simply not my cup of tea. probably well executed punk-rock but i am the wrong person to judge that. check out 'lunar eclipse'.

the release was handled by d.r.a. and they did a great job with it. the split comes on double 7" format with one song for each side cut at 45 rounds per minute. the two 7"es are housed in a lovely gatefold cover, which is pretty nice for this format. i really like the inner gatefold showing some funny pics of the two bands. the vinyl comes in a marbled grey colour-way out of 400 copies. demons run amok. 2008.   

verse - aggression

so this is the last verse record before chris berg broke edge and before the band called it quits in 2009. as a person who got into verse after their break-up, it never meant much to me that verse had been a straight edge band and then, after their re-union, wasn't anymore. but i do understand that this bummed out a lot of fans of the starting days of verse.

even though the band never offensively demonstrated their straight edge beliefs in their lyrics, verse always had more topics to address - politics, social injustice for example - a sxe-band is a sxe-band and it sucks if members cannot stand for ideals anymore, they have been once so proud of. anyway, all this stuff happened after the release of 'aggression'.

so let's sit back and enjoy a piece of music from when the world was still in order. 'aggression' is a great record to me. the logical evolution to 'rebuild' and 'from anger and rage'. the typical melodic, yet energetic modern hardcore that verse had perfected to play. maybe i should check out their re-union record too. we'll see. second bridge9 pressing on white with blue haze vinyl out of 1000 copies. 2008/2014.

bitterness exhumed - s/t

bitterness exhumed is one of my favourite german bands at the time. to me, they filled the empty void that war from a harlots mouth was leaving back when they were disbanding a couple of years ago. sure, bitterness exhumed doesn't play this chaotic mathcore reminiscent of botch and the like, but music is about feelings. and in a way, bitterness delivers the same sinister atmosphere that made me love the stuff of wfahm.

that being said, i always wanted to call at least one copy of all their releases on vinyl my own. some came easy, because i was right there to pre-order them and some, the self-titled 7" to be precise, were harder to come by. in this case, markus of per koro records and distro came to my rescue. he is also on discogs and when i was buying some stuff from his discogs offerings, he was industrious enough to ask if i wanted this one too.

he spotted it on my want list and i mean, come on, we can all imagine what the obvious answer was. indeed i wanted it plus the purchase was really on the cheap side. a win win situation, so to speak. 450 copies in total. 100 black copies and 250 clear copies of the 'normal' press, plus another 100 copies on gold with special hand-numbered sleeves. wooaaargh records. 2011. 

bleeding through - declaration

as a reader that was there right at the beginning of this blog, you may have a shallow reminiscence of this recor being featured here before. if so, well, then you're absolutely right with that assumption. usually i don't buy several colour version of one and the same album, but of course, sometimes the exception proves the rule.

for example, a better looking or better conditioned colour version of a record i love to the utmost is an exception. in this case i was always dissatisfied with my first yellow copy of the trustkill pressing because of an annoying flaw. read about it here. so when i was in bremen last year and i was visiting hot shot records i couldn't go past this one.

on the one hand because it was pretty cheap and on the other hand because there was nothing else to buy. the most of the metal and hardcore records were on some festival and the remaining stuff was just come in second hand records. i could kill two birds with one stone by replacing my flawed copy and scratching the itch of buying something. euro edition. nuclear blast. cargo records. 2008.   

gust - fuck life!

gust is a young hardcore band from trollhättan, sweden. i actually heard news of this band through a different release than 'fuck life!'. when i was browsing the southern lord european e-store, i came across their self-titled sophomore release. i checked them out and thought they were not bad, although this didn't make me order the record.

a little time went by and i entered the evil greed e-store. it's a newish german label/distro and i had fond memories ordering with them. they ahd this first release of gust in stock and i thought it might be apt to start at the beginning. the band plays fast and pissed hardcore-punk with a good crust edge to it. stuff that is quite popular nowadays and gust delivers it.

you can check out the whole release on the tube right here. nothing fancy about the packaging here. slip sleeve with printed dust sleeve and nice opaque orange vinyl. i searched for pressing information but only found a vague source stating that there were 100 copies made on this colour-way. also it seems that it was the only colour being pressed. monument records. iron plague records. 2012.

throwdown - covered with venom

i love my throwdown. that being said i tried to chase their vinyl releases over the last couple of years but never listened to their latest two full length albums. probably because they only have been put to compact disc and no vinyl. rather nontypical these days. ten years back who would have thought such an occurance could be nontypical? anyway, let's get to the point.

'covered with venom' was an accompanying 7" release to their full length 'venom and tears' from 2007. although it is not a single, because the two songs on this plastic platter are both cover songs. 'london dungeon' by the misfits and 'planets collide' by crowbar and are not featured on the vinyl record of 'venom and tears'. so i don't know why the band actually put this out.

the cover songs are cool but i really just bought this for the sake of completion. when i stumbled upon the the shattered realm record at the schwarzesocke.com e-store, i also found this copy on white vinyl and added it to the cart. there have quite a good deal of copies been pressed. white vinyl is out of 700 copies. for detailed info check out the according dead format page. trustkill records. 2007. 

in circles - void of illusion

it has been over a year by now that wrote about in circles' 7" 'reverie cult'. i obtained 'void of illusion' even before that and now i am finally coming around to post this up. just like 'reverie cult' i found this slab of wax at burnout record store, hamburg. as it was out on worship records, which also released stuff of avalanche and coldburn that i have in my collection, i was curious as to what this would sound like.

i threw it on the turntable in the store and was pleasantly surprised at the sound the needle transferred into the head phones on my ears. modern hardcore with a dark edge to it. thus there were no questions about my further actions. by now the label defunct, which is a shame because, as far as i can tell, they always did a nice job on their releases.

no exception here. lovely matte card for the cover and nice white marbled vinyl make for a great finish of the whole look. worship pressed two colour-ways. 100 copies on orange and 200 on this white vinyl. if you now want to scratch the itch of listening to this band, their bandcamp has you covered. green hell even has copies left. worship records. 2012.

brutality will prevail - scatter the ashes

brutality will prevail is another band coming from the british isles. just like continents, of whom i posted recently too, they reside in south wales. the band was founded in 2005 and so they are around for over a decade. not bad for a hardcore band. there had been quite a hype going on when brutality will prevail's latest record 'suspension of consciousness' dropped almost two years ago.

back then i didn't really pay attention but when i saw this record - their third full length and the predecessor of 'suspension...' - for a nice price at impericon and while i was buying the latest confession record anyway, i decided to check out what the fuss was all about. listening to it, it's very good executed modern hardcore. very good, sure, but at the end of the day it's really just that. nothing more, nothing less.

there are a lot of bands that been there and done that. to me, it doesn't separate itself from the rest. as always, this is my humble opinion and it is in your option to decide differently. here are the tools. check out the whole album on a popular video internet platform. this is the siege of amida records and century media pressing on 180g gold vinyl out of a mysterious number of copies. holy roar records and purgatory records did also some vinyl pressings. 2012.

war charge 7"

a demons run amok release that i added to a recent order with the label. i think, it was when i ordered the latest culture 'born of you' re-press. war charge is a hardcore band from edinburgh, scotland. i found this pretty cool, because i never listened to a hardcore band from scotland, i believe. in preperation for this post, i read that the band recently split up. their last show was played in november last year.

this self-titled 7" was released four years back and marks their first vinyl release in the band's history. the first release was a longer cd-version of this 7" on spook records from poland. musically this metallic hardcore with a certain old hatebreed vibe going on. nothing surprising here but definitely a solid piece of pressed plastic.

d.r.a. pressed 500 copies of 'war charge' in total. there are 300 copies on good old black vinyl floating around and the limited colur-ways came on white vinyl and this marbled clear blue vinyl, both out of 100 copies. you can check out the band at their bandcamp page and buy some left-over merch at their big cartel store. demons run amok. 2012. 

axis - rites of passage

i got this one as a bonus from a nice fellow i bought some stuff on ebay from. axis was an unknown band to me at that point. they are hailing from florida, usa and are around since at least 2011. apart from this 7" right here, they released two more split 7"es. one with self-defense family and the other with weight of the world.

recently they even put out a full length album on goodfight entertainment, called 'show your greed'. i don't know the three of them and am not too fussed to find out anyway. i mean, i listened to some songs of that full length and it's good. but more of an ok 'good' than a good 'good', if you know what i mean.

'rites of passage' is of the same ok 'good'. fierce and at times chaotic hardcore/punk that reminds of old converge here and there. check it out on their bandcamp and while you're at it, listen to their other recorded stuff as well. cool cover, though. limited edition on 100 clear vinyl copies. another 200 copies on black vinyl. nothing in vain records. 2011.