kings road merch: obey the brave

obey the brave - young blood
obey the brave is the new band of alex erian, former vocalist of disbanded despised icon (a shame). i loved his voice in the context of despised icon's modern technical death metal. it brought some hardcore vibe to it which made them pretty unique. so as i heard he would start a hardcore band i was all over it. when i got their debut 7" 'ups and downs' i said already that they don't reinvent the wheel but i liked it anyway. listening to the opening lines in their intro 'lifestyle' i chuckled inevitably.

not trying to reinvent the wheel

we keep it simple

we keep it real

these lines say it all. you get nothing what you didn't hear before. old parkway drive, the ghost inside (they are also on epitaph, coincedence?) are the bands that came to my mind immediately. but admittedly it's all played on a high quality level. catchy melodies, crew shouts, break downs. so with the first preparing lines and a damn cool hip hop skit ('grim') they got my sympathy (even the clean guest vovals on 'burning bridges' of ligeia's keith holuk couldn't destroy that :). better a band knowing they are not the most innovative musicians around than a band jumping on every new trend. 

the picture on the kings road europe site shows a kind of opaque yellow vinyl. the sticker on the cover to verify the colour is pretty yellow too. the vinyl however is definitely a clear orange. don't know how many were pressed.

printed dust sleeve + cd with the entire album. epitaph records. 2012.

merchnow: throwdown, obey the brave, blackened

throwdown - haymaker (again;-)
looking at my stuff you maybe already recognized i'm not very anxious about getting all vinyl pressings of any particular record. i choose the colour i like best and this is it. knowing this you maybe also recognized that i call "haymaker" my own already. but this case is different, the story: i always loved "haymaker" and so i wanted it on vinyl real bad. searching for it on the net i found a re-release of trustkill including "vendetta". per koro shop had it in store and so i ordered it. i didn't bother if there was a single vinyl pressing of it.
i can't really recall how i found this picture on the internet of the version i now hold in my hands. all i recall is that i thought: "damn, that colour split looks rad!" and i knew i got to have it! i was aware of the fact that bullet tooth records (in the past a.k.a. trustkill records) sell their stuff through merchnow and there it was... bingo!
so now i have some kind of two pressings of "haymaker" but the exception proves the rule :) end of story.
blood red/white split vinyl. 850 made. give me strength/trustkill records.

obey the brave - ups and downs 7"
getting stuff from overseas increases shipping costs. so i always try to order two items at least. checking things at merchnow i stumbled over obey the brave. they caught my attention because alex erian is their singer. he was in despised icon formerly which i liked quite a bit. i watched the video clip on youtube and decided to give them a shot. solid modern hardcore with guest appearance of scott vogel/terror. they don't reinvent the wheel but it's enjoyable. check them out!
there is a bronze, a silver and a gold press which are more limited (200 each) but look rather boring. so i ordered the most common pressing - nice clear green black splatter vinyl. 400 made. good fight music.

blackened - this means war
alongside i ordered a copy of blackened's debut album. i saw the colour at the shop and it appears that split colouring is my favourite way of vinyl colouring. actually just because of this and one listening to a single song i bought it. listening to it now in whole i'm not really enthusiastic about it anymore. the music alone is pretty cool but the singer's voice is rather annoying. it's sometimes very high pitched, almost hysteric. all in all the record is ok but i don't think i'll listen to this very often.
one sided white/orange split vinyl. 200 made. think fast! records.