congress - the essentials box set

man, this thing was almost two years on pre-order! can you believe it?! made available in 2019 and was finally delivered in 2021. i don't know where to put the blame, pressing plant or label, most probably both. what i know is that this is a poor customer service whatsoever. anyway, the result is super lovely. have all the original pressings but my fanboy heart just had to have it.

congress - blackened persistence

my backlog is huge. if i don't consider to go over my usual of something like twelve posts for two or three months, i don't think i will ever make a serious dent in that matter. for now, i'm not really in the mood but we will see to what the year will lead. to make me feel better though, within the coming four posts, this one included, i will put up some stuff from my wantlist, i already have what feels like forever. first one: 'blackened persistence' by congress.

congress is my favourite h8000 band. period. none better, in my eyes. along the way, i managed to get my greedy hands on almost every vinyl release of congress there is. only two were missing. the split with liar and 'blackened persistence', their first full length. the split isn't high priority but 'blackened persistence' definitely was. some years ago i even had the chance to snag a green copy from ebay for fifteen bucks. can you imagine, i let this chance pass me by. but then discogs made my day.

you know the rules, of course i paid more for this lovely opaque sky blue version. but i'm ok with it. it was reasonable still. musically this early work is a scorcher. the perfect blend between metal and hardcore which makes them so special to me. check out the album in its full glory by clicking this link. the record doesn't come with a proper insert but with a cd booklet. different sources tell me that there are either 50 or 100 copies of the blue vinyl. goodlife recordings. 1995.

congress - the other cheek

man, looking back at my recent posts, there seems to be not one that i was to one hundert percent satisfied with. this needs to change now. again it is another congress record. i was pretty eager to get all the lp's on coloured vinyl together, and with "the other cheek" i made a huge step towards my goal. again discogs came to my rescue.

ninety percent of my discogs inbox is filled with crap. records that are on my wantlist but far at the end of the priority list, come up several times a day. but you know, among all this shit there is the rare chance of finding a gem. and every once in a while such a gem comes my way. this time in the shape of a fine chinese seller going under the name of goatart.

an orange copy for under 20€ was too good an offer to pass up. even with the postage from china, which wasn't that high though. "the other cheek" is actually an e.p. with, at that point, five new songs on the a-side. these songs are great. typical congress mixture of death metal and hardcore. check out "under pressure" and love it. the b-side is grooved with their '93 demo. can't say i like it, but it has its value considering completion.

reading the band's dedication on the back of the cover, a smile plays around the corners of my mouth. seems like the scene suffered from the same problems as today, eighteen years later. shows me that we shouldn't take all those trend hunters and hipsters too serious. the diehard remain! 300 copies made on orange vinyl. there are also some black vinyl copies, but i don't know how much. good life recordings. 1996. 

congress deformity split 7"

long time no see. don't know when i did the last good-life-belgium-metal-hardcore related post. so here we are with another congress record. they are my favourite european metalcore band from that prolific period which spanned from the mid-nineties to the early 00's. they had such an unique sound combined with great attitude, that is simply unmatched to me.

this split came out before the release of their full length "angry with the sun". before actually dropping the needle on this 7", i wasn't really aware of the fact that the congress song "exhume the truth" is also part of "angry...". the b-side band called deformity was unknown to me. and their song "god defined" doesn't grab me enough to investigate further.

the deformity cover looks funny though. does anyone know if there is a deeper sense to that cover eluding me? the face looks somewhat familiar. anyway, i scored this one on ebay for next to nothing. there were 2000 copies of this split pressed in total. 1000 on clear vinyl, 500 on red vinyl and another 500 copies on clear blue vinyl. comes with the jukebox hole. good life recordings. 1997.

discogs pt 2/3: congress - euridium

congress - euridium 7"

after i added the superb life of agony record to my cart, i was eager to watch through green hell's other stuff to offer, because i knew about their good supply. the first thing i stumbled upon was this little gem here. the first congress 7". i'm not quite sure if it was released before or afterwards the first full length record 'blackened persistence', which came out the same year.

i suppose it to be unleashed before 'blackened persistence' because that is usually the way things go. 7" record before 12" record. but this is a crazy world so i can't be sure. what i know is that the songs on this piece of vinyl don't really blow me away. they're good, sure. i mean, it's congress we're talking here. but compared to all their later stuff, it pales a bit.

going after the discogs book, there are three pressings. the first pressing consists of 980 black vinyl copies and the ridiculous low amount of 20 red vinyl copies. the third pressing has 1000 brown vinyl copies and my baby is also out of 1000 copies, second press and on marbled purple vinyl. man, that colour looks awesome! and that b-side label is priceless. anyone knows who this is? good job, i'm happy with it.

warehouse records. 1995.

discogs: congress - resurrection

congress -  resurrection

and the winner is: congress’ last full length before the split. ‘resurrection’ was released in 2004. eye spy records handled the vinyl release for this. as i looked through their e-shop some time ago i found this record for five bucks. i threw it in my cart only to find while checking out that it wasn’t available anymore. funny chaps over at eye spy indeed. they could have made it clear in the description or banned it completely from the shop. would have spared me the let down after excitement. the eye spy page doesn't really exist anymore displaying only some commercial for upcoming hardcore shows. but whatever, it was xyosefx that came to my rescue and i have to say that, just like the ‘stake through the heart’ record, my ‘resurrection’ copy arrived in prime condition!

as i love all congress stuff their fourth album is no exception. again that great mix of this typical belgian fusion of hardcore and metal with a pinch of black metal that makes congress so unique to me. all killers no fillers. the change on vocals from pierre to tim is quite seamless. they sound pretty much alike. furthermore dwid himself made some guest vocals on the song ‘dogma’. the presentation is top notch again. i love the idea of making a special cover for the vinyl release compared to the cd release. of course it’s a question of personal taste and sometimes it’s not for the better but in this case i really like the lp cover. much more than the cd cover art.

i didn’t know before that the coloured run for ‘resurrection’ was numbered and it took some days to find it out. the hand written numbering is placed on the centre label of the a-side of the record. cool thing! the colour of this record is ace too. really nice clear vinyl with black smoke. looks lovely while spinning on the turntable.

as said before ‘resurrection’ was released by eye spy records on vinyl. the cd version appeared on congress’ regular label – goodlife recordings. 137 pressed on clear (some with black smoke, as i learned) vinyl and a to me unknown number of black vinyl. one stillavailable at the goodlife store. eye spy records. 2004. 

discogs: congress - stake through the heart

congress - stake through the heart

out of all these belgian edge metal bands congress is my favourite. no liar, no length of time, no arkangel, no morda - it's congress! to find some coloured vinyl seems to be a hard task for any of these bands. so you can probably understand my excitement as i got an e-mail by discogs telling me that a nice dude from the usa, xyosefx has some gems up for sale. all in all three congress records. 'the other cheek' on orange vinyl, 'stake through the heart' on white vinyl and 'resurrection' on clear vinyl. at that moment money was tight. i just bought two of them. i couldn't even afford one if it wasn't for a little bonus i got from my employer for swabbing up piss and shit. 

yepp, you didn't misread. i'm working as a therapist in a practice and one nice friday we had a pipe burst and guess who was there to do some first aid. the whole waiting area was flooded with water mixed with people's excretions and other stuff that people flush down. the practice is located in a hospital and so we thought that the maintenance people working there could do some quick help. forget it. because strictly speaking we are not the hospital and that's why we had to call our own plumber. it was friday plus the plumber had to bring some special pump device and so they needed over a fucking hour to arrive in which my colleagues and me were tilting at windmills because everytime someone in the building was using the toilet... you figure that out.

so i really felt that i deserve these records. xyosefx had them listed for good prices already but he also included a 'make an offer' option and so i was able to lower them a bit. i did go for 'stake through the heart' as you can see and on the second record i will lift the curtain in the next post to keep tension up ;-) i prefer this record over 'angry with the sun' although just by a hair. you feel that this band grew together improving their song writing skills. as a cool extra xyosefx kept a little promo sheet.

with this i could finally solve the pressing info mystery of my pink/red 'angry with the sun' copy. 500 made. goodlife used the same white colouring for this release as on the angel crew 'another day living in hatred' record. it looks like the casual white vinyl but hold up against the light a marble effect shows its glory.

i checked the goodlife website for pressing information. 200 copies on white vinyl were pressed. the site says that there are still some available. of course black vinyl only. concerning the black vinyl i don't know how many were made. goodlife recordings. 2000.

g.l. records: 50 lions, congress, angel crew

finally, my first post of 2013. in the last weeks i was occupied with moving to a new appartment. therefore i wasn't able to spend much time listening to music, especially as my turntable got fucked up during the moving process. shit! next thing being in the way of posting is the fact i still have no access to the net at my new home. so i'm writing this at home on my comp, transfer the data to a usb stick, using a free minute at work and sneak this into blogger.com.

50 lions – s/t 7“

in the past i placed an order at goodlife recordings for a do or die lp. from that time i knew that they had some other interesting stuff to offer, so i said to myself i'll check back when the time is right.

when i have the opportunity to place my order at any time i tend to lose sight because there is no pressure getting my record-buying-instincts rolling. same thing here. proof for that is the long time i let go by between the do or die purchase and this one. as 50 lions is one of my favourite bands of the more recent hardcore movement, there was no way for me letting this 7“ pass by. it's from 2009 and more in the vein of their first lp 'time is the enemy', which is fine with me. 50 lions just cannot disappoint me it seems. do yourself a favour and check them out!

as i'm on a down to nothing kick recently i need to get my hands on a copy of their split with the lions. This baby here comes on a nice green with yellow swirl. looks rad!

400 copies made. resist records. 2009

angel crew – another day living in hatred

angel crew is a more or less unknown band from belgium. correct me if i'm wrong but i don't think they have a big reputation to call their own. i just know them because they played once in the town i grew up, quedlinburg. my uncle had some stuff of them and i liked it. solid old school hardcore with some melodic refrains and sig-a-longs. can't do wrong with that.

i like the packaging of it. plain and simple cover artwork – grey ink on black background. white vinyl plus a light coloured insert to round up the black/white colour scheme. my girlfriend did a funny quote on the band picture. first i have to explain that my girlfriend is from lithuania, a small european country and a direct neighbour of russia. She grew up with many russians and i call some russian buddies my friends as well. anyway, responding to the dress code of the angel crew guys and the general look she immediately asked me what kind of new russian hardcore band this would be. made me chuckle :) greetings to vitali!

i don't know if i'm right but i think you can see the marble effect of the vinyl in the previous pictures quite good. if not i took a pic held against the light.

there are still copies left in the goodlife store for a nice price. ??? copies made. goodlife recordings. 2001.

congress – angry with the sun

i was really surprised to find that there are still some copies left. i believe this record to be a real classic in european edge metal and only paying twelve bucks made me almost feel vulgar. but ok, maybe this one isn't really that sought after. i'm really happy to have it anyway.

what i like about congress is that they mix some black metal into their hardcore metal hybrid. they reformed recently. hopefully they can pick up where they left. i need their other stuff which will be harder to come by, i'm afraid. there is a picture disc of this too. glad to have the coloured version and not the shitty pic disc. the cover art looks real apocalyptic. what's the name of this movie with eddie murphy where he's in tibet. something like 'golden child'. they fight the end boss turning into a dragon there. reminds me of the one on the cover ;-)

pink vinyl. again i don't know how many were made. goodlife recordings. 1998.

additionally i got some extras. love stuff like this. a poster, some stickers and a note from rene.

thumbs up!