deathbed / douglas - split 7"

another day, another speedowax release. this time it's about a split release of two bands i never heard of before and ever since. deathbed and douglas. i threw this record into the basket on a whim, to add something interesting just because i was able to. deathbed plays some heavy straight edge hardcore, which every earth crisis fan should get happy with.

douglas on the other hand plays something pretty different. i fail to catgorise their style becuase it's something i usually don't listen to at all. it reminds me of jimmy eat world's 'bleed american' (reminds me that i really love this song, check the video!) or something i heard of at the drive in. unfortunately i couldn't find any youtube or bandcamp for these two songs here. still the band has some tube videos and you can check some other stuff instead.

and yet another vinyl colour and sleeve versions crossover going on with speedowax. if the information is correct, speedowax pressed 97 black vinyl copies with blue/orange sleeves and all numbered. then there are 150 copies on orange wax. 25 copies of these were given green sleeves and another five copies got a record store day '12 sticker on the front. that means i have a copy out of 120 orange vinyl copies with blue/orange sleeves. speedowax. 2012.

hardships - too fast to slow down

the next speedowax release in line will be hardships' 'too fast to slow down' 7" from 2013. the vinyl delivers some raw and heavy hardcore at the metallic end of the spectrum. pretty much up my alley. since then i heard nothing new from them. so in preperation for this entry, i searched the almighty oracle, known as the internet for information concerning this band from england.

i found a facebook page and discovered that these guys are hailing from leeds. but wait, the logo of the band at the top of the page looked somewhat strange, more like a metal band logo. a bandcamp page was linked but it didn't mention the 'too fast to slow down' record. ok, maybe a different band with the same name. some more research revealed a review to this 7" with a link to the band's facebook page.

well, it's the same facebook page and the band seems to have evolved into a thrash metal band. how times have changed. jake, these dudes are homies from ya neighbahood, you know anything about the change in musical style? of course speedowax didn't just press different colours of vinyl, they also made a bunch of differently coloured sleeves. 200 copies on clear red and 100 copies on black vinyl - plus four versions with the crowned victory-hand coloured in. 75 sleeves for each colour. i seem to have the silver victory-hand with clear red vinyl. speedowax. 2013.

will to die - mass grave

today's post will mark the beginning of a little series. back in late 2013 i ordered a bunch of seven inches from the u.k. and now i feel ready to clear them from my to-blog-pile. furthermore i believe that my favourite u.k. dude jake will most likely dig this string of posts because they are all speedowax related. first is a band called will to die with their 'mass grave' compilation. this releases puts the first two e.p.'s of will to die on one handy seven inch disc.

on display is the 'iron fist' e.p. from 2010 and the 'don't tread on tennessee' e.p. from one year later. if you wonder what these guys sound like, their facebook info page has you covered. they state hatebreed, all out war, sepultura and strife as their influences, well, that pretty much sums up their sound. if you want to get a shot of their metallic hardcore then i advise you to check out their bandcamp page with all the band's releases so far. i read that they have a full length in the works. might be interesting to invent some time checking it out.

speedowax pressed 200 copies of 'mass grave' in total. 100 on black and 100 copies on clear yellow vinyl. then speedowax came up with five differently coloured sleeves. 40 for each colour which are purple, red, green, black and blue. i saw a numbered black vinyl copy with a blue sleeve out of 40. so i don't know if speedowax threw in the vinyl randomly or if there are 20 black and 20 yellow copies for each sleeve. my copy, however wasn't numbered. speedowax records. 2012.

bongripper - satan worshipping doom

another bongripper want crossed off the list. since i snagged the roadburn festival re-press of their 2008 'hate ashbury' album, i fell in love with this unique, bongripping doomsters. therefore i am always prepared to throw reasonable money at people for their copies of bongripper vinyl i am missing. in this case i actually wanted to spend my hard earned bucks on a discogs copy from the netherlands. it wasn't coming cheap but it was the common going rate and i was ready to bite the bullet.

then there was this incident at work. i had one of my thankfully rare saturday shifts, enjoying a break and was killing some time on the internet. i was searching for some mastodon vinyl pictures, clicked my way through some links and landed at the gates of kozmik artifactz. it is a mailorder from berlin specialised on doom, psyche and everything around sabbath worship. i found myself some other nice doom records, i will soon write about and then came across a new copy of this baby right here.

'satan worshipping doom' was right there for the taking. of course dudes at kozmik artifactz recognised the signs of the times and so the copy was only a bit cheaper than the discogs asking price, but together with only half of the shipping costs it was quite a worthwhile deal to me. kozmik packed the records super safe and i am all around happy with that order. recommended.

'satan worshipping doom' is nothing short of a masterpiece. the whole record is very dynamic, as long as you would call doom metal dynamic, that is. beside those crushing slow doom outbursts, bongripper knows to accompany them with some variety in pace - the very sound that made me adore 'hate ashbury' and of which 'miserable' lacks a tiny bit. check out 'worship' and get sucked in. my copy is part of the fourth pressing coming on coke bottle clear vinyl with some real cool blue smudges. ace artwork too. 250 made. great barrier records. 2010/2015. 

hardside - the madness

the new hardside record in my hands. their last album 'time is punishment' was a rager and even got better the more i listened to it. i loved this ace mix of heavy hardcore and heavy metal-ish sung choruses. therefore i was stoked when beatdown hardwear announced pre-orders for 'the madness'. i was pretty early in the game and snagged a copy of the most limited colour-way. strike!

when the record came in and i listened to it for the first time, i was a bit underwhelmed. their heavy, groove-laden hardcore stayed but somehow the cool sung parts were missing. not completely but i had to turn the record for the b-side to get what i craved for. after repeated listenings i like the a-side too and have to say that 'the madness' is a great album, but 'time is punishment' is better in my book.

you can stream the whole record at beatdown hardwear's bandcamp an make sure to check out 'resurgence' and 'till my blood runs dry'. the presentation of 'the madness' is awesome. lovely cover art, matching red printed dust sleeve, nice poster and the very lovely yellow with red marble vinyl record. all out of 75 copies. well done, well done. all colours still available! beatdown hardwear. 2015.

toundra - s/t

so here we are with latest toundra addition to the collection. their first and self-titled album, often referred to as I. this madrid based band knows how to pull off a damn good instrumental record and they even did so at the very beginning of their creative work. the band formed in 2007 out of the remains of an to me unknown spanish hardcore band called nacen de las cenizas.

for their new band, now called toundra, they left out vocals completely and stepped in line with genre heavy hitters like pelican or mogwai. although they can easily keep pace with aforementioned bands, they never gained the attention of those. maybe a bigger label could help them to better promotion. but probably they want it this way, doing this as a free time activity without the responsibility of making a living of the band.

if they keep cranking out such lovely records, i am fine with either way. i missed them playing live at the beginning of the year. hope i can alter that situation in due time. i scored this copy at discogs from a seller from france. this edition on white vinyl is out of 525 copies. check the tunes here. the album was put to vinyl in a collaboration of numerous labels. four in number. astoria records. devil child records. parade records. dias de juventud records. 2008.

i killed the prom queen - music for the recently deceased

about ten years ago i killed the prom queen was part of that new australian wave of hardcore. bands such as carpathian, her nightmare and of course parkway drive. even though i like the aforementioned bands better, i bought the metal blade europe cd version of 'music for the recently deceased'. when listening to the album i recognised that it was pretty different to everything else coming from down under.

the sound of 'mftrd' is remarkable. while most australian bands recorded or at least mastered their albums in the states and therefore had always this touch which made them sound like an american band, i killed the prom queen went over to scandinavia, to studio fredman in goteborg, sweden to be precise. the inclined metal worshipper should now go into raptures considering the genre heros that recorded there.

in flames' 'the jester race', dark tranquility's 'the gallery' or above all at the gate's 'slaughter of the soul' had been recorded in the holy halls. knowing about this legacy it is no surprise that 'mftrd' sounds so swedish melodic death metal-ish. put together with those typical metalcore breakdowns and the nice melodies, the album is a top notch release. i even like the clear sung refrains, which is usually not my cup of tea.

three weeks ago i stumbled upon a vinyl copy of 'mftrd' at impericon accidentally. i was checking the vinyl section because i had nothing else to do and there it stared back at me. i didn't hestitate to order a navy blue/white marble copy. after i placed the order i checked that unfd records from australia gave this pearl the vinyl treatment. it's the only i killed the prom queen album i own and listened to, and it's still every bit as good as i had it in mind. 250 copies made. unfd records. 2006/2015. 

human animal / wreckage - split 7"

human animal was on my radar since their 'dark days' 7" from 2012. it really took me by surprise and their catchy but yet heavy way of hardcore was absolutely up my alley. last year they came around with a split 7" shared with additional time from germany. these songs however, were a little bit of a let down. not real bad but not as good as 'dark days'.

from that point on i was waiting for another release. preferably a full length record. well, they did come around with a new output but unfortunately not with the desired full length but with another split 7". suddenly my interest died down a little bit and i said to myself to grab a copy whenever the time was right.

2014 passed by and so did a good half of the current year and i finally stepped up and ordered this record together with the new earth crisis 7" from per koro. per koro didn't list it as coloured vinyl and that put me off first. after i checked the pressing info on discogs and realised that there was only coloured vinyl pressed for this release, i let go of all my worries.

there was one little thrilling detail to be revealed, though. the record was pressed on three colour-ways. the most limited on coke bottle clear and white and clear blue vinyl out of 200 copies each. it turned out to be the white version, which is the better one in my book. the human animal part is as good as i hoped it to be. great stuff! give us a full length, guys! the wreckage part is more of the same but solid. check it out here. head2wall records. 2014.

aborted - coronary reconstruction

this is my second and at the same time last wacken 2015 festival pick. to begin with an introductory story, i stayed in bremen for a weekend in april this year. it was my birthday present from my girl and because she knows what i like, the weekend had some spots for visits at local record stores. one of them and apparantly the best sorted of the bunch was hot shot records. unfortunately some festival was taking place at that weekend and so the whole metal vinyl corner went there to be checked out by enthusiastic metal worshippers.

when entering the in-field area at wacken festival, one had to enter one of two more check points to get into the stage-field of the three open air stages. the first day i was taking the left entrance into the stage-field, on friday i was walking through the right entrance and then, taking a look to the right, there was this big tent with a big 'hot shot records' sign above it. finally i got to the store anyway. searching the vinyl boxes i came across this shining, new copy of aborted's e.p. release, called 'coronary reconstruction'.

back when it came out, five years ago, i bought the cd digipak version because vinyl wasn't of any importance to me at the time. since i started collecting records in late 2011 i wanted a coloured copy but this proved to be very difficult for a reasonable price. understandably i was delighted to get a new copy for retail price. musically this is great. three of the four new songs also made it onto the later full length 'global flatline'. the last song is a well-made cover of entombed's 'left hand path'. 180gr clear red vinyl of unknown quantity. century media. 2010.

queens of the stone age - songs for the deaf

i am back from wacken festival 2015 and boy, it had been a hell of three mud-ridden days! the week before the festival started it was raining constantly so all ground, camping site and in-field of the festival area, were turned into one big pool of mud. especially the paths were all sodden and sometimes i was afraid my gumboots could possibly get stuck in the sludge. luckily i live not far from the festival and so i parked my car on asphalt streets in the village and drove home every night, to sleep in my dry, warm bed. others had not been that lucky.

anyway, friends told me beforehand that on the in-field one can find a big metal market tent with retailers with all kinds of related articles, particularly records and cd's. so of course i wanted to see that badly. thursday, the first festival day, wasn't that fruitful when it came to bands i wanted to see. first one started at seven p.m. and because of that, i planed to check the tent first, get some vinyl and place it safely in my car.

a word and a blow. i paid my three-days entrance of two bucks, got another wristband for entry and walked my way into the tent. i probably spent two hours of searching through vinyl racks and came across some interesting stuff. but nothing that really pushed me towards a purchase. but then i pulled this baby. queens of the stone age's 'songs for the deaf' record. and above all on coloured vinyl. one disc on opaque red and the second disc on clear red vinyl. back in 2002 my younger sister bought a cd copy and really recommended it to me.

it was a strange sound for me back then, amidst all korn and some cradle of filth but i really liked it. now it fits my stoner mood to the point. i knew that alot of bootlegs are floating around and i already smelled the rat, but even prices for the bootlegs are pretty high and so i took the gamble. yesterday i checked the net and yep, it's a bootleg. i mean the spanish version of 'gonna leave you' instead of the original was already a prime indicator, but as i really love this record, it's ok. not the best quality but it'll sweeten the wait for a re-press.