ignite - a war against you

ignite is around for over twenty years and when hardcore bands manage to stay in the game that long and when their new records went as fast at pre-order stage as 'a war against you' did, you know they damn well know how to write some crackers. i snagged a white vinyl version on pre-order at century media distro and the more limited colour-ways start to fetch quite some pennies over at those second hand market places already.

is this buzz justified, you might ask? a clear 'yes' is the only possible answer. ignite still celebrate that catchy melodic hardcore-punk sound of their starting days and managed to transfer it into another new decade without sounding like a copy of theirselves. all is fresh and crisp and most of all relevant, musically as well as lyrically. check out the song 'this is a war' for the culminated essence of this album.

the presentation is as lovely as it is simple. a slip sleeve made of fancy matte card, a printed dust sleeve, a cd of the full album and finally this lovely 180g pristine white vinyl out of 100 copies. according to discogs century media pressed astonishing 5.000 copies in the first press. here is the complete breakdown because i can't be arsed to write it down by myself, century media. 2016.

ignite - call on my brothers

when i thought of the next record to post about and was looking through my vinyl pictures, i came across ignite. i recently pre-ordered their new record 'a war against you' and so this might be a good warm-up for coming january. 'call on my brothers' was ignite's second record and came out in 1995 on conversion records. at the time they were also signed to lost & found records from germany.

their first releases 'scarred for life', 'family' and the ep 'in my time' were all released by lost & found records. obviously the band rather liked to collaborate with an u.s. label because in times without internet, communication across the pond was more difficult than nowadays. as the band asked their german label to hand out the mastertapes for 'in my time' for a u.s. release, lost & found felt decieved and threatened to boycott the release.

ignite backed down and 'in my time' and 'family' were released by lost & found records in europe. the band still signed to conversion records and released the material under the name of 'call on my brothers' in north america. in 2000 revelation records re-released the album on cd first and two years later finally on vinyl again. i now have a further re-press on clear red vinyl out of probably a shitload of copies. great record, by the way. revelation records. 2014.

ignite - our darkest days

i knew not much work of ignite ever since. to be honest i just knew their probably most popular song 'bleeding'. and i have seen them at least once in 2003 and probably another time on some festival. but then this black friday rsd 2014 knocked on my door, leaving me a note that 'our darkest days' would be available again on some nice colour vinyl. i didn't order immediately, don't really know why. it must have been this half assed attitude that acompanied me all the way when it was about getting some ignite vinyl.

when i went to the persistence tour in january this year in hamburg, ignite was on the billing and what should i say, their set was great. i mean, this night all of the bands had a good time but ignite was definitely sticking out to me. with hindsight i could have bought a copy at their merch table but after the show i had some trouble because i lost the slip of paper belonging to my stuff at the wardrobe. anyway, i ordered with per koro and now i have a copy at last.

the record in whole is a scorcher. i really love the political songs, such as 'know your history' and especially 'poverty for all'. it's about the failed october revolution of 1956 in hungary. i can relate because i was born in the gdr, the second german state which existed from 1949 to 1989 under a communist regime. so it feels like a piece about my very own history. comes on solid blue vinyl. can't really say how much have been made. 500 maybe? but that's just a guess. think fast! records. 2006/2014.