liar / sunrise - decontaminate

a liar record and my record collection. long time no see, would be the most apt description for this relation ship. coloured copies of releases of this band are pretty hard to come by, it seems. well, at this point i am able to finally make another dent in this matter. after christmas i got a discogs message telling me that there was a copy on red vinyl available, the price was reasonable and shipping wasn't too expensive because the record came from belgium.

when the record showed up i was a little puzzled as to why my copy didn't come with an insert. the discogs pic was showing just this and so i asked the seller if he somehow forgot to include, which seemed unlikely, or if there just wasn't any. tijs, the nice dude i bought the record from, said that the three red copies he has all came without an insert plus he asked a friend who had a red copy and also no insert.

he said that as far as he knows the coloured run was made for tour and so i presume the pic on discogs was made by someone who had both, black and red copies. anyway, the liar part is pretty good and just what you would expect from them. heavy and harsh thrash/death metal with vegan/straight edge ethics. the sunrise part is melodic death metal and ok and that's it. i don't enjoy it as much as the liar side. 100 copies made. wanted records. lifeforce records. 2003. 

continents - idle hands

another rather old record. i bought this one together with the emmure 'eternal enemies'. at least the record caught my attention when i ordered the emmure vinyl from the victory web shop. but due to increasing shipping cost i ordered 'idle hands' elsewhere. as victory pressed coloured vinyl only it was an easy decision for me to go for a german retailer. hvv.de in this case.

continents is a modern hardcore band from the uk. south wales to be more precise. a lot of successful bands seemed to emerge from the island in the course of the last ten years. bring me the horizon, architects to name the spearheads of the movement. continents formed in 2010 and seemed to impress victory records that much, that they got a deal without any releases up their sleeve in 2012. it took a year until 'idle hands' dropped.

i really like their type of metallic hardcore with sometimes very catchy and sometimes dark/melancholic hooks plus a good portion of sing-a-longs. of course, they didn't re-invent the wheel here but it's good stuff. reminds me of the new for the fallen dreams from time to time. continents got a new album under their belt right now called 'reprisal'. no vinyl version from victory as yet. hopefully that will change. 400 copies on purple putty. victory records. 2013. 

as i bleed - fire in summer

around christmas time my girl and me are visiting both of our families. as the relatives don't live around the corner, these visits are extended trips. in 2014 we were staying at the house of my mother in law and, as a day trip, we were going to dortmund, which is in the near where she lives, to do some post-christmas shopping. indeed, my only destinations were the record stores in dortmund. my first stop is usually andrä store for used cd's, dvd's and vinyl.

they have a small hard 'n' heavy section which holds some gems from time to time. this time i found a ten inch by a band whose name rang a bell somewhere inside. i couldn't say where that reminiscence came from but i knew that this band plays some stuff i like. i took it to the turntable to confirm my assumption. after i successfully did so, i didn't hestitate to throw four lousy bucks at the shopkeep and took my black version home.

a little time went by and in summer 2015 i came across a clear copy of this ten inch on ebay. as it came even cheaper, because i got it for the starting bid of one euro, it was no problem to me to add another variant to the collection, especially as it is a coloured one. unfortunately i can't tell you much about the band or label because information is a bit scarce but if you like nineties vegan-straight edge hardcore ala arkangel or morning again, this will be right up your alley. the cover is gross though. voice of life records. 1998.

bongripper - hippie killer

bongripper record #4 in my collection and the second full length in their discography. what i hold in hands here is the recent colour re-press from december of the bygone year 2015. i heard news of it just a few days after burning world records, which has a distribution deal with the ripper, posted a respecitive message with pre-order informations on their facebook page. i instantly hit the web-store.

once there i could only see pre-order options for 'miserable', which got re-issued, too. at this point i freaked a little. could it be that all the copies burning world would recieve had already been sold, or was it some flaw on the site that made 'hippie killer' currently unavailable? i checked the bongripper big cartel store and found copies still available. i thought to and fro if i should get a copy from overseas, or wait for burning world to put some up.

i mean, i just couldn't imagine that all copies were gone so soon but in the end i was too frightened to miss out and bought a coloured copy directly from the band. fuck them oversea shipping costs! surprisingly my copy arrived even before christmas and didn't get delayed because of the increased package traffic in this time of year. while i was waiting for the vinyl to show up, burning world offered copies after all. typical.

i listened to this record a few times since and have to say that it was the hardest to get into yet. the first half is brilliant but the second half wears thin in comparison. maybe further listens will change my opinion but for now 'hippie killer' is the weakest of the four albums i know. still a great listen though. the artwork is absolutely stunning. mike miller did a great job to transfer the title into disturbing and yet funny images. the vinyl colour is lovely, too. 250 copies on luna green. great barrier records. 2007/2015.

until the end 7"

until the end is an ever-welcome guest on my turntable. they were active from the early to the mid 00's and played some, at the time very popular and uncompromising metallic hardcore with straight edge attitude. they came up with not even a handful of releases but as far as i know them, they are all great. only of 'the blind leading the lost', their last full length from 2004, i am unable to form an opinion due to my unknowing.

the rest of their stuff is top notch. of course not really timely anymore but what a surprise, most of it is approximately fifteen years old. i still enjoy this shit and that is why i couldn't say no to this 7" when ebay gave me the opportunity to obtain it. in the end i payed a fair price, i believe. i can't be too sure because i bought this two years ago, but according to the current discogs prices it couldn't have been much.

this self-titled 7" was released on equal vision records, home to iconic vinyl releases such as converge's 'jane doe', sick of it all's 'scratch the surface', give up the ghost's 'background music' and many more. equal vision pressed a bunch of them on black vinyl for retail and a mailorder edition of something in the range of 200 copies on opaque purple vinyl. looks pretty nice. now i want that 'let the world burn' 7". equal vision records. 2000.

red fang - murder the mountains

for the first time this year i will post about a recent addition to the collection. although this record was released already five years ago. i know the name red fang since i plunged head first into relapse records' stoner and progressive metal pool, riding big waves of mastodon, baroness and high on fire. these top notch bands are constantly on heavy rotation on my turntable with one album or another.

being compared to those bands, i always knew that interest in red fang might pay off by being awarded with more great stoner tunes. especially this record, 'murder the mountains', was to cross my path alarmingly frequent. i once held a fourth press copy on brown marble in my hands four years ago but put it back due to a lack of understanding. in the following time i checked a song or two of that album every once in a while, but it never really clicked.

when a good friend and me were on a vinyl shopping spree in hamburg, hopping from store to the other, we also stopped at saturn store where we found copies of red fang's first self-titled album and 'murder the mountains'. he was raving about the band but already blew his budget. and i tasted blood. when i was at the store a few weeks later doing some christmas shopping, the record still sat there and i couldn't resist anymore.

sometimes you simply know that you like a certain record without listening to it properly before. 'murder the mountains' is such a record to me. i really love the queens of the stone age vibe going on here. still the band has its very own sound. a cracker all the way through. check out 'throw up' and 'human herd', my favourites. the packaging is great with its die-cut cover, the nasty mountain underneath and the lovely white vinyl. tenth press out of 1340 copies. relapse records. 2011/2015.

these days - death sentence

i pretty much regularly visit my favourite record store burnout records in hamburg. it's always fun to poke around seeing what's new or discovering new old stuff. such was the case when i was looking through the 7" racks. the cover looked interesting but the band's name didn't tell me anything.

so i pulled it out of the pile to check it out more thoroughly. i spun it and thought man, this isn't bad. unfortunately i can't find any tunes on the net. i added it to the stuff i wanted to buy. since then i never saw anything else the band released. in preparation for this post i checked discogs for more info. it says that there is a full length released on cd only from 2005.

then there are two more releases which i am pretty sure got mixed up. they look completely different artwork wise and the bandmember names don't fit as well. when i assembled the hints that the internet gave me correctly, then there are 500 copies on mixed vinyl in existence. some came out more grey, some more purple and some more pink. run for cover records. 2004.

oathbreaker - maelstrom

when i bought oathbreaker's second full length 'eros|anteros' two years ago, i really came to like the gloomy and desperate atmosphere the band creates on this album. the album isn't breath-taking all the way through but definitely worth the time spent listening to. when i come across a new album of a band i never heard before, my natural hunting instincts force me to check out possible other releases.

in the case of oathbreaker i inevitable stumbled upon 'maelstrom'. it's their debut full length and out through deathwish inc. quite a compliment for a european band that even across the pond such a well-reputed american label heard of their musical deeds. but when i listened to 'maelstrom' for the first time it couldn't convince me completely. and in comparison with 'eros|anteros' it still can't but that's ok.

it misses a bit of that cold and dark black metal touch of the sophomore record. but i can appreciate this record in the musical context of the band and it is still an entertaining listen. check for yourself. the full record at your service. there are two colour-ways of the first press. 300 on bone white and 700 on my bronze vinyl. a second press on bone/bronze merge vinyl also in circulation, which looks way better but i can't be bothered to get a copy. i'm fine with my ebay find. deathwish inc. 2011.

stillborn - degrading culture

i always try to add at least one more record to an order that has only one item yet. it's a complete irrational act that makes me think i saved a bit on shipping. in the end i just pay for another record which usually bears no proportion to the amount saved on postage. i believe, this 7" of stillborn right here, called 'degrading culture' must have been such an addition.

stillborn hails from vienna, austria. lovely city. been there on holidays last year, the vinyl yield was a shame though, but that's another story or better no story at all. the band is around since 2012 or something and this is their debut release. they play some gritty and metallic hardcore that reminds me of coldburn or expire. pretty good stuff but not too unique, which is their only weakness.

check out the band's bandcamp page. you can listen and download 'degrading culture' for free, after that you can head over to their big cartel and buy the physical copy. by the way, stillborn released their second 7" called 'forced' this year and pressed it to vinyl as well. i might check that out. 'degrading culture' however comes on nice yellow with black splatter vinyl out of 250 copies. self-released. 2013.   

cruel hand - born into debt

let's start the new year off with yet another record from the vault. when i actually bought this 7" a year ago it was a new release. by now another cruel hand full length came out called 'the negatives', but 'born into debt, we all owe a death' killed it for me. i really liked their stuff up to 'lock and key', which reminds me that i need a physical copy of this album, 'vigilant citizen' was different but still cool but this 7" doesn't do anything for me.

the band went into a new direction and it's just not my cup of tea anymore. that's all. check it out for yourself here. for this release cruel hand teamed up with closed casket activities, while 'vigilant citizen' which came out the same year was released on triple-b records. 'the negatives' appeared on yet another label, hopeless records from the states.

closed casket pressed 1700 copies in total. 250 on blue with orange splatter, 500 on gold with black haze, 750 on my gold vinyl and 200 copies on black that the label actually didn't order at the pressing plant but the plant pressed accidentally. reality records from belgium did a compilation 7" with the two 'vigilant citizen' songs and the two a-side songs of this release. the b-side song is a in cold blood cover. closed casket activities. 2013.