the river card big cartel

the river card - momentum

yet another find inspired by j@screamingforrecords. seems that it's always worthwhile to check his posts ;-) greetings to you, dude.

the river card is a british band playing hardcore in the vein of bands like naysayer, backtrack, cruel hand, ect. 'momentum' is a pretty strong record and if you can get into afore-mentioned bands you should definitely check them out. listen to the album on their bandcamp site from which you can get forwarded to the big cartel shop. exactly from that shop i ordered. as i got the stuff and opened the record i was a little bit confused not to find a download dropcard of which i thought that i read something about in the description at the shop. so i thought i could download them at the bandcamp site like this is sometimes possible with other bands. but nope, no option like this at bandcamp. i didn't really pursued a solution 'cause i was a little tied up in work. one day i got a mail by chris (don't know if it was the drummer or the singer, they're both named chris) sending me over my download code and apologising for forgetting to include it. decent chaps!

lovely cover art! i like it a lot. white w/ red splatter vinyl. 100 made (and still available). bare necessities records. 2012.

the river card - the great fall 7"

of course i wouldn't buy just one item when checking the other stuff. so i grabbed this nicely coloured 7" 'the great fall' which came out two years before 'momentum' was released. actually two songs were featured on this release first before appearing again on the full length (the songs 'the great fall' and 'momentum' obviously). sound wise i prefer the 7" to the 12" - the drum sound is more organic.

 again the cover art is superb!

great white/grey split vinyl. 200 made. a clear vinyl version also available (300 made). bare necessities. 2010.

ugly & proud rec.: raindance/allocation split

raindance-allocation split 7"

since i fell in love with allocation's 10" 'corvus corax, corvus corone [soul birds]' i wanted the rest of their stuff available. speaking of that there was a split 7" with a band called raindance. just like the 10" i ordered this split directly from the ugly and proud bigcartel shop. the allocation songs are just lovely! dark, depressing tunes from these belgians. raindance is a band from massachusetts. they contribute only one song to this split and i don't like it. they are compared to strife and 108. i cannot endorse the comparisons made but i have to admit that i'm not too familiar with those bands.

again an allocation release comes with a nice artwork. it was made by a guy named volker henze. in regard to the name this seems to be a german guy. i googled the name and an artist from berlin was the first hit. couldn't find any link between him and that release so i can't be 100% sure. if you consider that this 7" is a co-operational release by ugly and proud and zwarte dood records this is an all international thing. a band from the states + a band from belgium + a label from bulgaria (ugly&proud) + a label from belgium (zwarte dood) + presumably an artist from germany.

this is the complete artwork unfolded. additionally i got a short note by niki - the guy running ugly&proud. i love stuff like this. makes you feel like being part of a big hardcore family ;-)

a pretty cool effect emerges when held against the light. nice marbled vinyl. 100 copies made. another 100 on clear vinyl. ugly & proud records/zwarte dood recordings. 2011.

steeltown rec.: the lines we cross

the lines we cross - s/t 7"

actually i don't have fragrant memories concerning this order at steeltwon records, a german d.i.y. label from eisenhüttenstadt. i was looking for a record from narziss, a not very popular german new school hardcore band with german lyrics. steeltown had it in store and i included some other stuff to make the order worthwhile. i picked up project print 3# (reading project print 4# already led the pleasant discovery of wolfxdown as you can read here) and the self titled 7" of 'the lines we cross' - a band from my former hometown leipzig which i also discovered by reading that fanzine.

first thing that sucked was the information within an e-mail which was forwarded to me by the guy running the label. he told me that he was sorry but the 'narziss' record had sold out. it had been a shelf warmer for years but then somehow a great demand for it came up and i was too late... shit!

anyway, i ordered the rest.

there are two versions available. a white one and the orange vinyl you can see here. i ordered the orange 7". but then what i got was a white copy plus the wrong fanzine. 4# which i already have instead of 3#. i was pissed. as friendly as i could be i wrote a mail to steeltown asking for the right stuff. they asked me to send back the wrong items. i wasn't very happy with paying extra money for postage but then again anyone can have a bad day, right? fuck the €1,50!

i got my orange copy within two days and all trouble was forgotten. the colour of the vinyl is kind of pale but that makes it an interesting shade of orange. that thing which looks like a curtain in picture one is the fold out insert and the flip side is shown on pic two. as a bonus you get a patch and a download dropcard for their first full length album 'screams at sunday morning' which was released some month earlier in 2011.

the lines we cross play some old school melodic hardcore. good stuff, not briliant but solid. all together 1000 copies made. all hand numbered. 500 white and 500 clear orange. steeltown records. 2011.

ebay: cradle of filth

cradle of filth - darkly, darkly, venus aversa
yep, stone me to death but i'm a cof fan, at least their post 2000 stuff up from 'midian'. i love those freaky islander with their bombastic sound scapes and their metal punk attitude! the first song/video i heard/saw of them was 'babalon a.d.' from their scorcher 'damnation and a day'. not long ago i held the cd version of this album in my hands and thought: 'damn! i definitely should have this one on vinyl.' that was the point from where i was looking out for cof vinyl. the first record i could get my hands on through ebay is their latest output 'darkly, darkly, venus aversa'. it's one of their lesser good albums but still a crazy journey through many styles of metal. another thing which sets them apart from other bands in that genre and which makes them unique is the lyrical content. they deal with the mythological character liltih. a kind of female demon who gets reincarnated in the body of a nun after she was exhumed by some isaac. this is how far i got with understanding :-)

there is some more stuff going on which i fail to comprehend and to speculate about would lead too far into irrelevant detail. the record comes as a double vinyl version. record one on opaque blue and record two on opaque dark red.

gatefold sleeve and printed dust sleeves with all lyrics.

their brand new effort 'manticore' will be released on first of november this year i think. i already put my pre-order in. thankfully 'damnation and a day' will be re-issued this month by music on vinyl. i included that on one in my pre-order. so expect more cof stuff soon.
2000 copies made. mine is 1707. peaceville records. 2010.

ebay usa: nile

nile - annihilation of the wicked

after i picked up 'those whom the gods detest' i really wanted to score this one, my favourite nile record, desperately. just like with 'those whom the gods detest' i waited pretty long on a discogs option, this time with the end result that it was gone before i decided to get it. arrgghh... he that will not hear must feel... 

so i extended my range of purchase options onto ebay worldwide as i was able to track down various stuff from e.g. ebay france or ebay usa in the past (not only records). the problem was to find a seller who would offer a coloured version plus for an, in my eyes, adequate price. thank god for the official exchange rate of the euro at the moment. i came upon a buy it now offering of $44,99 for the grey marbled version which is round about €35. i thought that'd be adequate and i pushed the button.

all in all with shipping it cost me around €50 which is quite a lot money for a record for me but it seems that it won't show up for less referring to popsike.com so i'm ok with it. the record itself comes as a double vinyl version on a marbled opaque grey colour. record two is way more marbled then #1. 

printed dust sleeves and a gatefold cover indeed. the liner notes and the lyrics are put down on the inner gatefold all together which is a better solution compared to 'those whom the gods detest', where the lyrics and the liner notes are printed seperately on inner gatefold and dust sleeves.

i love the black and red colour scheme on this. looks real apocalyptic. the god sebek on the back.

side d contains an etching. as i pulled out my digi-pak version of the cd i realised that the cd label and the etching are one and the same picture, only i don't know what it shows :-) looks lovely put against the light correctly. the picture really doesn't do the actual effect justice but it was hard to capture with my shitty digi-cam.

900 made. relapse records. 2005.

disarmare: wolfxdown, fallen into ashes

i'm not quite sure on what occasion i bought this nice german fanzine at burnout record store, it must have been the time i bought dead swans+naysayer but anyway i picked up 'project print 4#'.

i mainly got it because my uncle's band isolated is featured (if you like straight foreward hardcore punk check them out here). as you can see on the cover wolfxdown got the lead story. i read it and things took its course...

wolfxdown - MMXI 7"
wxd are a political vegan straight edge band from the ruhrpott area. they are active since last year and they released this cracker in the same year as the name indicates clearly. the article in project print was interesting, the answers of the female singer were very sophisticated. sometimes a little bit over the top but definitely encouraged. they caught my attention.
i checked their bandcamp site and followed the link to their e-shop hosted by disarmare, a german d.i.y. distro.

i was pretty lucky to grab one because disarmare said that they had only a few copies of the third and final press left on red vinyl. it has sold out by now.

love the artwork and the colour scheme of the whole layout. four songs on this e.p. and the song 'rot' with a massive breakdown that i feel an urge to see them live just to be part of that pit ;)
150 made on clear bordeaux red vinyl. a co-release of germany's start a fire records and america's xcatalystx records. 2011.

wolfxdown - renegades 7"
buying their first release i couldn't resist getting their sophomore release too. 'renegades' may not be as strong as 'MMXI' but i think it needs a bit more time to grow on me. it's still forceful hardcore metal with a nineties edge to it and real good lyrics which are worth spending some time with them.

money talks but i'm not listening

i fucking bite the hand that feeds

so if you always thought that walls of jericho's older stuff is way more preferrable and if you can dig sophisticated socio-critical lyrics you have to check them out!

the cover is a nice fold out poster with the lyrics on the flip side. a download drop card is included which is pretty senseless because 'renegades' is for free download on the start a fire site anyway, by the way 'MMXI' too. 

clear marbled orange vinyl. 200 made and still available! start a fire records. 2012.

fallen into ashes vs. zero tolerance split 7"

after i pressed 2x the add to card button for the wolfxdown 7"es i checked the rest of disarmare's stuff. i came across a name that sounded quite familiar to me - fallen into ashes from hungary. around 2006 i bought a lot of cd releases by a eastern europe label called deadbutcher records. bands like abhorrence, action, crowley's passion and fallen into ashes of course. i have their '04 e.p. 'laments for lost victories' on cd.

i liked it and so i picked the 7" up, just for the hell of it.

it comes with a nice silk screened cover, light blue with golden ink. additionally you get some sort of download dropcard. it says you should write a mail to the label's address, stating your copy number and in return you get a digital copy. i did so two weeks ago but no reply yet. this came out in 2009 and i don't know if the label, dzsukhell records namely, is still active. so maybe i'll wait for the reply forever ;)

i found the following pressing information: 333 copies in total. 125 with a black cover, 108 with a red cover and 100 with a blue cover. the blue cover copies are on clear vinyl and i've seen the black cover copies are on clear w/ black smoke vinyl. don't know about the red cover copies.

the fallen into ashes side is superb! slightly chaotic hardcore with metal influence throughout. the zero tolerance part (they're also from budapest, hungary) is not really my piece of cake.
dzsukhell records. 2009.

burnout store: dead swans, naysayer

on my last trip to this fine store in hamburg's schanze district i found these crackers!

dead swans - anxiety and everything else

sunday is my usual posting day. next in line for today was dead swans (i post about records in the order i bought them). before i do so i look around a bit on the net. usually i visit partyausfall.de, a german internet fanzine, for news. one of the news of today was the break up of dead swans... what a fucked up connection!

so here is my swan song for dead swans (tragic wordplay). on my other visits at burnout i saw the record many times before. after 'sleepwalkers' and their part of the split with architects were on heavy rotation on my player the obtaining of 'anxiety and everything else' was just a question of time. if you liked the previuos stuff you won't get past this one! sound wise it's more raw than the other releases but that's no weakness at all.

they plan a farewell tour for the last quarter of the year. some selected dates in the uk. unless i won't win a journey to one of these gigs i will most likely never see them live. a shame...

the vinyl itself comes in a lovely clear red / clear split colour. looks rad! can't say how many were made. bridge9 discography just says that there is a grey w/ white swirl version of this but no numbers.

bridge9 records. 2012.

naysayer - laid to rest

originally i ordered this record along with this order here. per koro/markus couldn't get it because of problems with delivery and i recalled that i've seen this at burnout too. it was still there and what was even more satisfying was the fact that they had the rarer clear w/ blue splatter version. nice score!

great to here the development to their previous 7"es. love it to hear something unexpected (the song 'laid to rest') next to their usual stuff, which is pretty good midtempo old school hardcore.

the record comes with a heavy cardboard sleeve, an insert with all lyrics and the always welcomed download drop card.

put against a darker background the white splatter pops out quite good. nice center label :)

clear w/ blue and white splatter vinyl. 650 made. reaper records. 2011.

discogs: nile

nile - those whom the gods detest

reading my blog from time to time you may recognized that i'm a nile fan. i love the overall way they present their releases. epic death metal, outstanding lyrics, well thought cover art, liner notes, gatefold sleeves - all that stuff makes any nile record a master piece. i could already obtain 'in their darkened shrines' and 'ithyphallic' + 'at the gate of sethu' together. so next and pretty high on my want list was 'annihilation of the wicked' and 'those whom the gods detest' (t.w.t.g.d.), both on coloured vinyl indeed. 

i check various sources constantly for the possibility to nab a record of my want list. discogs is among them. looking for 't.w.t.g.d.' i found a seller from the netherlands selling it for 25€. i don't know what was wrong with me but i didn't grab it right away. even a week or so passed and i was still inactive. i mean 25 bucks is an alright price for a coloured copy that has sold out for some time. 

so one afternoon, i was hanging around lazily, i had the following furtive dialogue with myself concerning this collector's item...

-so tino, let's talk about you're so-called nile mission, ok?-

"ok."

-you like nile pretty much, right?-

"yepp"

-and you'd like to have all their stuff on coloured vinyl. that correct?-

"not really all their stuff, but principally yes."

-so you've spotted 't.w.t.g.d.' on discogs?-

"right."

-and it's a coloured copy?-

"that's what the description says, yeah."

-for a fair price?-

"well... yeah, that's right. oh, and it's sealed"

-so let's summarize this. you can get a sealed, sold out copy of a record you want pretty bad for a good price and waited a week already and didn't buy it yet? have i got that right?-

"eeehhhmm... i mean... that's what it seems like to be..."  

-what kind of mindless idiot are you? get your ass up and do what you should have done a week ago!-

"yes, sir!"

i bought it and after my vacation the record waited for me at my neighbour who friendly accepted it from the post man :)

nice colouring! opaque beige with multi colour speckles. on the back of the printed dust sleeves the liner notes are printed.

of course it comes in a gatefold sleeve. the inside shows the song lyrics and the credits.

really nice about it is that unlike the german black vinyl version this nuclear blast u.s. version comes with a cd of the entire album. so you can have a digital copy without using a sneaky download. i cut out the sticker that was on the shrink wrap. it's limited to 1000 copies. 

nuclear blast u.s.a. 2009.

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.

demons run amok pt. II: the lowest, solid ground

the lowest - s/t

oh boy, how i love this one! the lowest are a band from poland, warsaw to be exact. i love finding good bands from countries of which i didn't think their hardcore scene would produce something great like this. thinking of eastern europe i can only name a handful of bands (action-cz, abhorrence-sk, fallen into ashes-hu, xangelreichx-pl. well, that's not even a handful and i couldn't even tell if these bands are still active - fallen into ashes definitely isn't). so it was a nice surprise to me reading the unregular appearing demons run amok newsletter with a link to the lowest bandcamp site. after listening to it i had only one chance finding my inner peace again - ordering it!!! it's pretty dark, down tuned modern hardcore (d.r.a. says: chokehold meets terror meets have heart) with lyrics about poverty, social injustice, desperation.

it's a cooperational release of d.r.a. with the polish label pop underground. 100 are pressed on white, 300 on black and another 100 on clear w/ black smoke of which i could nab one. the sleeve is not an actual sleeve, more a big folded poster of thick quality (to reduce costs i assume).

the colouring is pretty clever i think because it looks a lot like the photo on the centre label of the vinyl and on the sleeve inside which shows the inner texture of a tree.

demons run amok entertainment / pop underground. 2012.

solid ground - can't stop now

a swiss hardcore band which is not active anymore. i ordered a copy way back to last year. the one i got had a scratch - not big time, just a small one but pretty deep and unlistenable. because it just cost me 5 bucks and was an addition to a bigger order i didn't make a big deal out of it. i asked marcel (the guy running d.r.a.) to send me a new one. he said he would but never actually did it and i just completely forgot about it. so without even reminding the incident he seemed to remember it this time and unaskedly added a new copy. i was quite happy about it :)

good old school hardcore with hints of madball, skarhead and the like. i have the regular pressing of 300 on clear red w/ black smoke (there's a tour pressing of 100 on clear red and pre-order pressing of 100 on clear blue). printed dust sleeve. demons run amok entertainment. 2008.