life of agony - ugly

let us come to my little batch of christmas gifts. i wrote a little wishlist for my relatives to make the search for gifts easier for them. yeah, i am that nice kind of a person. in the end i got nine records for the season of which i will put up seven here (the other two are not hardcore or metal related). the first one is the latest re-press of life of agony's second full length "ugly". since vocalist mina communicated her new self to the world, i saw the band play live twice but didn't come around to even listen to one song of the new album.

i will have to right that wrong soon. but as of late i was more interested in their old stuff. i mean, "river runs red" is definitely one of the best nyhc records out there and the guys never reached those highs again but i really can enjoy "soul searching sun" and thus was excited for "ugly". on this record one can strongly feel the departure from the hardcore background to a more alternative driven sound. still, "ugly" is great for what it is and to hear caputo sing is always a pleasure. a voice as one in a million.

music on vinyl did the job and as always they did a splendid one. "ugly" has been released in 1995 and got the vinyl treatment via roadrunner records back then. twelve years later, in 2007 roadrunner re-issued the album as part of their classics series on 180gr black wax. so ten years after that music on vinyl continues their collaboration with roadrunner and comes up with this nice gold vinyl version. the presentation is very close to the original, like that. only the centre labels are taken from the '07 re-issue. 1500 made. music on vinyl. 2017.

life of agony - soul searching sun

life of agony released one of my all time favourite records. "river runs red" was once handed over to me on a dubbed cassette by my oncle and ever since i loved this fifty minutes of recorded music. despite the fact that this album has a special place im my heart, i never spent much time with their other outputs. i listened to a few bits of "ugly" and knew the song "weeds" because a friend of mine loves it but that's that.

since 2014 the band is touring again after they resigned from their second resignation in 2012 and a new album is set to be released this year. now music on vinyl thought it might be a good idea to re-issue some of their older titles. well, that comes in just handy. at first they re-released the band's "unplugged at the lowlands festival '97" album on several vinyl colours for this years rsd. i wasn't interested because it's a live album plus, and that is even worse, no electronical distorted guitars.

when "soul searching sun" from 1997 was announced, i was way more interested. i skipped the pre-listening on the tube and the like and when the time came i ordered at per koro right away. after i gave it some spins i pretty much got what i was expecting. the record is solid but doesn't gets me as excited as "river runs red" does. they dropped a lot of their hardcore elements in favour for a more alternative orientated sound. this new recipe works on one half of the album very damn well.

songs like "gently sentimental", "led astray" or the superb "neg" are very strong. then there is another half which is just average alternative rock and a bit boring. still i think i'll grab this for an occassional listen here and there. the presentation is the shit though. nice matte cardboard sleeve, a fold-out insert and hot 180gr orange marble vinyl. very nicely done! #1334 of 1500 copies pressed. music on vinyl. 2016.

life of agony - river runs red

it was a day somewhere in this year's summer, as i opened my blogger dashboard to check what new posts of my fellow bloggers might came around with this time. i looked through them and then it hit me like a sledge hammer. was that a freaking coloured version of one of my favourite nyhc records staring back at me? i hit the page and read my way through the post. and yes it was true! the re-issue gods had been gracious in my behalf. finally a coloured version of life of agony's 'river runs red'.

the post i was getting these great news from is an entry by lenny. check his words to it by clicking here. it told me that it had been some kind of black friday record store day release by brookvale records. never heard of this event or of the record label either. but anyway it was there and my task was to get hold of a copy. anyhow it wasn't going to be that easy though.

i could have easily ordered a copy directly through brookvale records or some other american retailers, but man, these damned shipping rates. the record alone wasn't a cheapo but together with shipping it was too much to me. so i seaked a german distro to have a copy in stock. the only option i found was an ebay seller. the price was pretty high and all in all i would have to pay the same amount as buying from the states.

after some weeks of thinking to and fro, i bit the bullet because they had some other stuff to offer and i made the order worthwhile to me. the ebay store i'm talking about is called hhv. it has its own internet address as well and seems to be an big ass store, that has all kinds of vinyl and some really cool distributed titles. i bought some more stuff from them recently. but that's another story.

musically i don't have to tell any more about this pearl of an album. such an intense piece of music. lyrically and sound-wise. this suicide story that holds the album together, sends shivers down my spine everytime i listen to this record. i saw life of agony recently play live at this years elbriot festival in hamburg. for those not in the know, keith is not keith anymore. mina is the name and he is a she right now. so i was very excited to see them. the change was remarkable concerning her look, the sound however, didn't change a bit. she still has this bone chilling singing voice and they played almost exclusively 'river runs red' songs. i really had a blast, as well as everybody in the crowd. brookvale records. 2013.