strife - incision

when i wrote about that on bodies 'unremarkably mortal' 7" two posts back, i told you guys that i included another record in the order. a hardcore heavyweight release. and what else it could have been but the new strife output. i read about news at the lambgoat.com new hardcore and metal releases info page and initially thought it was a full length. the record is released by war records, which is the label of the band's guitarist andrew kline and that meant pre-orders from the states would come expensive.

therefore i waited it out to have a german distro i could order it from. of course my favourite distro per koro had a copy for me when the release date had come. the first thing i came to realise about this new effort was, that it's not an album but much rather an e.p. of four songs. well, usually i am totally a fan of the 12" format but for three new songs and a black flag cover track, i probably would have preferred a 7" release.

anyway musically it's simply three damn good strife songs. after 'witness a rebirth' i wasn't sure if they would continue recording but they are back with a vengeance. you can check out the whole e.p. by clicking this link. war records had two colours for 'incision' available. a clear and a clear red one. both colour-ways came with a silkscreened b-side for more limited editions and with blank b-sides for the common editions. i have the most common vinyl coming on clear red out of 700 copies. war records. 2015.

the black dahlia murder - abysmal

the black dahlia murder is one of the few bands with seven records or more where there is no bad record to be found. all their full lengths are pure melodic death metal worship of the american tinge. i have almost every black dahlia murder album on vinyl and taking all these facts into consideration it was a no-brainer to order their new effort 'abysmal' blindly as soon as pre-orders went up.

like all their previous outputs, metal blade took care of release matters with 'abysmal' as well. as emp mailorder is the official distributor of metal blade europe, i knew that the pre-order process would go down all smooth. the interested music enthusiast was able to choose between two european colour-ways, which were orange with red splatter and orange with black marble. i took the latter one. there is also an american opaque yellow version around.

'abysmal' took some time to sink its claws into me. it wasn't the initial hit to me like 'nocturnal' or 'ritual', but after several spins it really grew on me. all the stuff i love about this band is there. the fast blast beat attacks, the unbelievable hymnic twin guitar harmonies and those fantastic story telling qualities of vocalist trevor. from 'vlad son of the dragon', the transylvanian lord dracul, prototype of what would later become the modern vampire myth, over lycanthropic dangers in 'the fog' to the the so-called mentally ill in 'asylum'. the absolute awesomeness.

the only little downer is the artwork. i mean, the idea is pretty cool. looks pretty death metal and all, but you know what? i don't like those computer generated images. it would have looked a thousand times cooler, if it was really drawn. i don't know, i'm not an expert and probably it's quite an effort to craft a cover like this, but to me it looks cheap. sometimes these are the little things that set the really great album, which 'abysmal' is, apart from the absolute fantastic album like 'ritual'.

anyway, musically this is the shit. go get it! the vinyl version comes in a tri-fold sleeve, with a full landscape poster and a bonus 7" with three more fantastic songs. the last song, 'der ton', is an odd one. it's sung in german (der ton = the sound) and is about what sweets sounds the electric guitar produces. would love to know why the band chose to sing it in german. 500 copies of my clear orange w/ black marble and the 7" on gold/brown. metal blade. 2015.

snapcase - designs for automotion

picking up the 'end transmission' lp used this summer in düsseldorf was a friendly reminder that i had way too less snapcase vinyl in my collection. so i checked back with the label almost all their output was released on - chicago's finest victory records. fortunately victory just re-pressed three snapcase titles that i didn't own on vinyl. thanks to victory's very moderate oversea shipping costs, i bagged them all.

the first of the batch i post up here is their third full length 'designs for automotion'. this album is the next progressive step to 'progression through unlearning' and fits perfectly between the aforementioned album and 'end transmission'. snapcase records make sense evolutionary, if you can follow me. although it's probably the snapcase album i like the least, it doesn't mean 'designs for automotion' is weak. not at all.

it is packed with energy and shows the possibilities of hardcore. it doesn't have to be your average gang shout, breakdown, my-crew- and my-city-lyrics over and over again. snapcase raised the bar and they still sound relevant today. check out 'disconnector' and 'ambition now'. victory re-pressed this baby for the first time since its release. 112 on 'funfetti/tan putty'. looks lovely. victory records. 1999/2015.

glowsun - eternal season

after glowsun's latest album 'beyond the wall of time' got some serious spins on my turntable, i looked around for the predecessor album called 'eternal season'. i already bought it something like two years ago via discogs, only it wasn't for my humble self but for a good friend who didn't have an account. by this incident i knew that there was a lovely semi-translucent yellow vinyl about.

so when i asked discogs again for that yellow vinyl out of 300 copies, it answered with a handful of offers starting at fifty bucks up to one hundred. man, no way i was paying the asking prices. the blue vinyl of the first press out of 150 copies even started at eighty bucks. completely out of the question. discogs told me but another thing that made me confident again.

napalm records, the label 'eternal season' was released on, reissued the record just in time for the 'beyond the wall of time' release. at discogs copies started at an illusionary sixty nine euro price tag, but i thought to check out the napalm internet shop for remaining copies. thankfully i did because i snagged a new copy for the store price. still thirty bucks but factory new.

sometimes i can't explain those second hand prices and especially those who pay them. if discogs is to be believed, a yellow copy sold for ninety euros. so not even for the rarest colour-way, and it's still glowsun we're speaking about and not led zepplin. makes me wonder if i pay that money, if i was able to. when money wouldn't be an issue. probably yes. greedy humans we are...

the album however is very good. a little bigger portion of vocals one here than on 'beyond the wall of time' but really just marginally. the rest is just pure psych/stoner worship. progressive and sophisticated through and through, musically and visually alike. check out 'death's face' and 'thing' and then go and buy a copy of that 180g clear red vinyl out of 100 copies, because napalm has still some left. napalm records. 2012/2015.

on bodies - unremarkably mortal

a new release by on bodies. i bought their 'the long con' ten inch release last year on a whim and was very pleasantly surprised that their material really raged through the twelve minutes of its duration. great fast, at times melodic and always political hardcore punk with former culture and morning again member damien moyal on vocals. so of course i was pretty curious about this new 7" by the band.

it is a very good release after all. just like 'the long con' it's that same recipe they used before. it's fast, it's angry, it's melodic and it makes that type of political hardcore decent again. i am thinking a lot of verse when listening to on bodies. check out the song 'prevail' and tell me you can sit still when listening to that cracker. only downer is that 'unremarkably mortal' is too short. give me a full length, dudes!

the initial release passed my by a little, it was through the per koro newsletter that i heard word of this 7". so i headed over to my favourite distro and, together with another hardcore heavyweight release, i ordered it straight away. irish voodoo released this slab of wax. there is a shop exclusive black and yellow mix vinyl out of 110 copies and my opaque yellow distro vinyl version out of 550 copies. irish voodoo records. 2015.

kataklysm - of ghosts and gods

i saw kataklysm play live at this year's wacken. or better, i saw them playing the last two songs of their set. they played at a ridiculous time, 12 a.m. on the third day, and i really tried my best to be there in time but my age and the growing exhaustion at this point of the festival were an opponent too powerful to successfully battle with. i liked the two-song appearance anyway and my anticipation grew considering the release of the new record.

i pre-ordered the new album 'of ghosts and gods' via nuclear blast europe, together with the latest nile record. as the 'what should not be unearthed' vinyl edition faced some delays i had to wait some extra weeks for the kataklysm lp as well. when it arrived it unfortunately had some ugly bends in the cover. however the nile lp came unharmed. anyway, i returned the record for a replacement.

i have to compliment nuclear blast for the very smooth procedure. it was no problem to get a replacement and i even got the postage i paid in order to return the record as a credit balance for my next order. now i finally have a new, shining copy of 'of ghosts and gods'. i really have to say that this album very good and beats its predecessor 'waiting for the end to come' to second place.

die hards will probably say that they again decreased their northern hyperblast in favour of an increasing level of melodies, and right so, but that's just the very thing that makes this record so good to me. somehow it's the right balance between grooving aggression and catchy melodies. check 'thy serpent's tongue', ugh - snakes. gold vinyl out of 200 copies. nuclear blast. 2015.   

poison the well - the opposite of december

when i bought destiny's 'the tracy chapter' back in 2004 i was totally blown away by their awesome mix of crushing hardcore, fierce breakdowns and the most bittersweet melodies i have ever heard. one of my all time favourite albums. why am i telling you this? fair question. the answer lies in destiny's similar sound to poison the well, intended or not. when i listened for the first time to poison the well's first full length, to check if the rumours can be trusted, i was really surprised.

the similarities were remarkable. check 'nerdy' by ptw and 'admiration of sadness' by destiny. you will see what i mean. so because i love this destiny record, i now was in desperate need for a copy of 'the opposite on december'. still on cd back then. it didn't really work out but when i started to collect vinyl and got a copy of destiny's 'the tracy chapter' on green vinyl, the thought of owning 'the opposite...' resonated somewhere in the back of my head. the cd was released by trustkill and the vinyl was liscensed to goodlife from belgium. that made it hard to get a coloured vinyl copy.

last year i was pretty close to have a blue copy. i bought it on discogs. a few days after the pruchase the seller gave me a refund. don't know what really happened but the end result was no blue vinyl in my hands. so i waited again and last week my copy was finally there, again bought from discogs. a polish seller had a nice first press copy, to be distinguished from the second press by its ten inch insert instead of a twelve inch insert, to offer and i gladly grabbed it. cover and vinyl are in very good shape. 300 made on opaque blue. really great to have this in my collection. artwork by jacob bannon of converge fame. goodlife recordings. 1999.

kreator - phantom antichrist

i never was a big kreator fan. in fact, i didn't know anything the band ever released since this year's sommer. but from the beginning, i had a ticket for this year's elbriot festival in hamburg. it's a one-day-festival with one stage and last year was a blast. bands like august burns red, amon amarth and especially life of agony made this day really memorable to me. this year's line up didn't really do anything for me but one exception.

mastodon was on the billing and i was thrilled. i pretty much bought the ticket solely for this band. sometime at the end of july their was an announcement on the festival page that mastodon had to cancel all their remaining euro shows due to personal matters. aaarrgghh! now i had to find something to make this event worthwhile to me. the only band on the billing i was interested in checking out and which i didn't know previously was kreator.

of course i know that kreator is one of the three big german thrash bands next to destruction and sodom, but i never was keen to listen to anything. i checked some stuff of 'hordes of chaos' on the net and was pretty surprised at how cool this was. the right dosage of thrash energy and really catchy melodies. i bought the cd box set for next to nothing and at the festival the kreator thrashed everything in their way. i really enjoyed it!

so when i was on a record shopping spree in hamburg last month with a friend, i couldn't pass this one up. it's their latest record on nuclear blast. although 'phantom antichrist' might be a bit more melody-driven than 'hordes...' and, as i read, more than all their other releases up to this point, it's a very good metal record to me. i enjoy it from first tune to the last. not one weak song. check the title track here. the presentation is lovely, too. great artwork all around and nice semi-translucent, almost highlighter yellow vinyl. nuclear blast. 2012.

rise & fall - our circle is vicious

i really like rise & fall. this belgian crust/punk/hardcore band has a great feeling for energy, haunting melodies and ferocious heaviness. it's hard to sit still while listening to a rise & fall record. i actually had a copy of 'our circle is vicious' since last year. it was a second press copy on 'bronze' vinyl that i bought from per koro. as i was looking for pressing information on discogs, i read about the first pressing's breakdown. all the colour-ways of the first press sounded way lovelier than mine and i started to feel a bit unsatisfied.

when i saw some pictures on the net, including the post of jake's copy and adding the factor that the album is pretty slick, i knew i couldn't live with my boring bronze piece of wax anymore. so i made a mental note to pick up a first press whenever i'd get the chance to. subject to a reasonable price, of course. two weeks ago the chance was there and i pulled the trigger on this lovely slab of vinyl on ebay. it came with an album sticker. don't know if it was part of the original package, or if the seller threw it in.

however, i finally came to peace with 'our circle is vicious'. as already mentioned the album is superb. check out 'in circles' and 'harm's way' and convince yourself that this band rules. the art work for this baby is, again, crafted by jacob bannon, vocalist of converge. looks ace! the album was recorded and mixed at god city studios by kurt ballou, converge's guitarist by profession. with so much converge interweaving it only made sense that 'our circle...' was released on deathwish inc. 300 copies on white and bronze merge vinyl. 2009.

early graves - red horse

i actually never heard a word about this band before i came across this ebay auction, which helped me to add this monster to the collection. the same seller that had the alpha & omega record of the last post, offered 'red horse' and i was simply intrigued by its cover and vinyl asthetics. so i took a short trip over to the tube and listened to some stuff.

whoa, what the hell? early graves sounds dark, fast and absolutely pissed. a lovely mixture of punk, crust, hardcore and metal which reminds from time to time of the almighty converge. the whole album is an absolute cracker. check out the title track 'red horse' and bear witness to the rumbling sound of the record, which adds a bit of a stoner feel.

the album was released by no sleep records. i don't think i have any other no sleep records album but i definitely like what they did with this output. nice slip sleeve of good cardboard quality, black dust sleeves and this gorgeous vinyl colour. a red marble vinyl that almost looks pink out of 300 copies. great album through and through. got to keep my eyes open for the band's other stuff. no sleep records. 2012.