50 lions - former glory

hands down, 50 lions are one of my favourite contemporary hardcore bands. the only problem i have with the band is that they don't seem to get their shit together to release a new full length. already nine years passed since "where life expires" saw the light of day. in the mean time only two 7"es emerged from the depths.

i found a copy of "pray for nothing" at underdog record store in cologne but i really had a hard time to get my hands on "former glory" this time around. it wasn't like it was hard to find. i could have easily bought one from the states or from australia, where the band comes from, but i couldn't get past these goddamn high shipping rates. black copies were available through german distros but i wanted a coloured one.

so i waited and at some point i forgot about it. when i visited the german evilgreed.net e-store out of boredom i finally came across a colour copy and bought it right away. those two songs are so fucking good, can't stop to listen to them. check them out! second press on lovely burgundy marble vinyl. unfortunately i don't know how many of these beauties were made. six feet under records. 2016./2017.

iron heel - book of grief (tape)

this tape actually is in my possession since two or three years by now. at the time i already had the vinyl version of "book of grief" from 2013. the album is superb and i played it a lot and still give it a spin occasionally. back then i bought a very good depravation record with dark omen records being involved. i checked the label's store and they had this slick tape version of iron heel's debut full length in stock. the presentation really appealed to me and so i bought it.

even though i had no tape deck at that point i listened to it via my walkman. well, probably just once and then i shelved it. now with a player in my reach i gave it its first proper run-through. the sound quality of the tape is amazing and the tape only bonus track "the end result of 11 months in the mental hospital" alone makes this cassette a winner. nice slipcase with alternate artwork adds to the overall great impression. must have been a real homejob to assemble them. one can see glue fingerprints on the back. 100 copies made. dvvm records. dark omen records. 2015.

drawing last breath - hymns of suffering

when i added drawing last breath's debut full length to my cart at the carry the weight e-store, i was searching for another item to justify the shipping costs to myself. seeing the 7"es they had to offer it was a no-brainer to pick up drawing last breath's first release for the english label. the "hymns of suffering" 7" was released in 2016 and was also on sale. two pounds later i was the owner of a nice clear green copy.

musically "hymns of suffering" doesn't have the brilliancy of "final sacrifice", song-writing wise and production wise as well. remarkable is the cover art of this 7". it shows sappho, a poetess from greek ancient times, and her suicide in cause of rejection painted by aintoine-jean gros in 1801. perfect match to the record title and works really good in the late nineties/early 00's metallic hardcore context. 400 copies made on clear green vinyl. carry the weight records. 2016.

drawing last breath - final sacrifice

oh boy, what a crushing late nineties/early 00's metallic hardcore reminiscence this sucker right here is! i think i was browsing through the carry the weight e-store to see what cassettes they may have in stock. what i found instead was a cool looking cover artwork which made me curious. it reminded me a bit of maroon's "antagonist" (a hell of a vegan/straight edge hardcore album) cover art and i felt compelled to listen to drawing last breath. the tube helped out and a few minutes later i knew i had to have a copy.

drawing last breath hails from florida, usa and by tradition they stand in line with those classic bands like morning again and culture. soundwise there is another band from the states which acted as a model here. undying blended swedish melodic death metal with hardcore in a masterly fashion and drawing last breath sounds like they have listened to them very closely. a fantastic record which spins a lot lately. sharing members with ecostrike, i hope drawing last breath won't become a side project. carry the weight had the record on sale and so i snagged it for lousy five pounds. steal! 400 made on red with black splatter vinyl. carry the weight records. 2017.

indiana jones and the temple of doom soundtrack

to me the second indy movie was the most difficult of the classic trilogy. not that it was boring or showcased bad acting, even the little boy part is bearable (in most other movies those parts plain suck). i can't quite put my finger on it but somehow "temple of doom" is inferior to its predecessor and successor. maybe it is the missing of the opulent artifact as the secret star of the picture.

anyway, "temple of doom" is still an indy movie and thus better than all adventure movies without indy. the soundtrack is fantastic john williams work as always. the title "anything goes" for the opening sequence is one of the best of its kind and "the mine car chase" is the right action induced piece for one of the coolest chase scenes in movie history. the record was a bit pricier than "raiders" but this seems to be the usual case. very nice artwork here. european version on polydor records. 1984.

indiana jones - raiders of the lost ark

next to my big star wars and batman affinity, i am sucker for all things concerning indy jones and his adventures. if you are a star wars geek it seems like a natural thing to be a fan of dr. jones also. both are the brainchild of george lucas so the same sense of fairy tale-ish adventurism is plausible. when i was in kiel lately i visited a record store i have never been to before. the metal section was a dead end but the movie soundtrack rack was a direct hit.

i saw the familiar cover art of "raiders of the lost ark" and knew it had to be mine. the price was fair and the vinyl plus cover sleeve in pristine condition, so i really had no excuse. dropping the needle on the record, the movie plays in front of my mind's eye. especially "the map room: dawn" is such a strong and ominous piece. i love the whole ark theme, a highly memorable melody it is. i have a copy of the european version on cbs records released in 1981. great score!

electric wizard - wizard, bloody wizard

there wasn't much for me this year's record store. literally not one single release caught my attention. i wrote off rsd 2018. in one of my regular searches at the new vinyl section over at the european nuclear blast store i came across a new pressing of the recent electric wizard record. it was actually released in 2017 and of course i was aware of the output but a few factors really put me off and i refrained from ordering a copy.

coloured first press copies had a hefty price tag on them considering this was just a single lp release. even for a double lp, i think thirty bucks are quite expensive. furthermore the colour-way was clear vinyl and i am not the biggest fan of that. other stuff seemed more attractive at that point. ok, hands down for this rsd version i didn't pay much less but i felt it was finally time to get a copy. i wasn't disappointed at all.

this is a no frills doom/stoner metal record with the right dosage of occultism. electric wizard seems not to be capable of writing a bad album. the presentation is pretty neat. gatefold cover with glossy card on the outside and matte card on the inside. a cool touch, never saw something like this before. then we have a printed dust sleeve, a huge poster and nice white with red splatter vinyl. tattooed retro female ass and genitalia in the artwork is always a winner. rsd '18 release on spinefarm records. 2017/2018.

machine head - the burning red

machine head was never of much interest to me. i saw them a couple of times play live at festivals, which were always good shows, but i never really sat down to listen to their records - with one exception. in the late nineties i was listening to a lot of nu metal stuff, korn and the like. at the time machine head was also influenced by this musical movement and they wrote an album that in parts also appealed to nu metal fans.

actually it were just two verses of the whole album where flynn incorporated some rap vocals into the sound and that was it. nevertheless the band got a lot of hate for "the burning red" from 1999 and it is maybe the most controversial album of the band. anyway, back in the day i saw the video for "from this day" on music television and i liked the song. so when i saw a cd copy sitting at a record store in the neighbour town, i grabbed it.

i remember that i liked three quarter of "the burning red" and thus i never listened overly often to the cd. when music on vinyl announced a re-issue i still was interested and so i ordered a copy. listening to the record now is pretty much a reassurement of my impression from almost twenty years ago. a solid album that doesn't go beyond. still entertaining, though. good work of mov here. great restoring of the original artwork and layout plus lovely red/black marble vinyl. 3000 copies made. music on vinyl.  2018.

misery index - retaliate (tape)

my misery index collection borders on the embarrasing. considering that i really like this band and that my first record i bought was their "heirs to thievery" lp, it is hard to understand why this record is the only misery index album on my shelf. when i was searching the animate records webshop for another tape to add to the nile cassette, a "retaliate" copy was looking pretty attractive to me. finally i saw the chance to atone for my sins and bought misery index release number two for the collection.

the band's debut was actually released in 2003 by nuclear blast records. back then it got cd and black vinyl treatment. power it up records from germany did another vinyl run in 2011. it took another five years and a fine finnish indie label to come up with a tape release. the other records took a way better alternative front cover, printed it on a multi fold out j-card and produced 100 clear shell cassettes. great sound quality to top it all off. musically "retaliate" is a relentless bastard of death and grind metal. check it out! the other records. 2016.

nile - at the gate of sethu (tape)

tapes have become a recent guilty pleasure of mine. it is real fun to hunt readily available cassettes for cheap. it is a welcomed addition to the vinyl collecting game, which nowadays pretty much consists of pre-ordering and paying quite some cash for rare titles. to not get too caught up in buying tape after tape i set a rule for me: don't buy stuff you already have on vinyl. well, of course there is always an exception to the rule.

i am a big nile fan. they are part of what i consider my big five (converge, mastodon, between the buried and me, high on fire and nile). for those bands i go above and beyond and when i saw a tape version of nile's 2012 opus "at the gate of sethu", i couldn't possibly say no. the cassette was released by small czech label evil horn records three years later. unfortunately my copy got a flaw in the song "tribunal of the dead" on the b-side. two pretty harsh disturbing noises were reason enough to ask for a replacement at animate records, the distro i bought the tape from.

they sent me a new one but sadly it was flawed too. strangely not equal flaws but on two songs of the b-side this time. don't know what went wrong in the production but i won't ask for another flawed tape. i consider to dub the tape myself but i have to collect more information about the process. apart from the actual cassette the j-card is an absolute winner. alternate cover art to the vinyl release and all lyrics and more art inside the fould out j-card. very nice! 100 copies made (has anyone out there also a flawed or maybe even a flawless copy?). evil horn records. 2015.