Sunday 31 July 2011

Fucked Up - David Comes To Life pre-order 7" set

Arriving a lot later than I would have thought, the final part of the Fucked Up LP 'David Comes To Life' pre-order. A set of four 7" singles only available through this package. And on Ebay when someone needs to pay their phone bill. Matador Records say that there were somewhere in the region of 2000 of these pressed.

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Each 7" has two songs on it (except for one) and they serve to tell a backstory to the characters and places which feature in the story told on David Comes To Life. That's an 18 track concept album as it is, which I already don't understand that well. And now there's these additional 7 tracks, along with an exclusive digital track 'The Truest Road'. Oh, and the RSD 2011 release -  11 track LP 'David's Town' which is apparently a soundtrack to the whole thing. A musical soundtrack to music? Ok then. So yeah, 37 tracks in all to this epic undertaking. That's one hell of a concept album. Anyhow, back to these 7 inchers. Each track has individual artwork, so flip them over :

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They also have individually coloured centre labels:

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Again, different for each side.

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Blank flip side on 'Octavio Made The Bomb' which is the only one without two tracks.

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This is also the only track outside of the concept. The lyrics tell the story of how they came to write the album, what it's about and some sarcastic 'aren't we very clever' bollocks. Each 7" has it owns lyrics & credits sheet. 

The family together at last :

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I'm not too sure that I care all that much for the story, or understanding it. There's some really solid songs amongst all of it, different to older, punkier Fucked Up (if you've listened to some of the Zodiac series or the last LP you would have an idea of where they were heading) but I'm into it. And the track 'The Other Shoe' is one of the best songs I've ever heard. All in all, a cool set. And a good pre-order package from Matador.

Sunday 24 July 2011

Crash Of Rhinos - Distal

I bought this without hearing a single note from this band.

Crash Of Rhinos are a band from Derby (near the middle of the UK for overseas readers) and make a brilliant punkrock-jangly-shouty-gangvocals-anthemic- noise. Not a very concise description, so I guess I could say that if Kinsella bands and Algernon Cadwallader float your boat, prepare to have a new favourite band. This is how they were sold to me, so I bought it and was not disappointed.


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300 copies of this double LP set were pressed, released through Triste Records and The Audacious Art Experiment. The package has a brilliant DIY feel to it. The wraparound sleeve is printed on an olive green, thick card. Inside that is a lyric sheet, backed with a ton of black & white photos of the band.


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Song lengths are longer than your average for a band of this style, so the album is is spread across 3 sides.


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With a blank side where D would have been. I inexplicably love a blank vinyl side.


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It seems that copies of this are getting thin on the ground now. You can't get them from the bands Big Cartel anymore, and I got the last copy from the site I bought mine from.The band have said on their site that they have taken some copies out on the road with them for their current run of shows with Algernon but they're expecting these to sell out. There's some copies on the Triste records site (hope you paid attention at school) but no telling how long these will last. I'd get in there quick, you won't regret it.
One thing I do know is that they are set to re-release Distal through Brave Or Invincible Records in a CD package. BOI have always put a shit load of DIY love and attention into their CD releases so this will be worth keeping an eye out for. On top of all that, you can also head to the band's Bandcamp page and download the entire album for free. So if i haven't brainwashed you with my picutres, hyperbole and easy link clickability, ill try and be more direct. GO  AND  DOWNLOAD  IT,  IT'S  FREE  AND VERY  GOOD.

Tuesday 19 July 2011

Agoraphobic Nosebleed - Agorapocalypse

Well, it's taken me a while but I've finally landed one of the records at the top of my want list. Agoraphobic Nosebleed's 2009 LP - 'Agorapocalypse'. Released on Relapse Records, limited to 500 copies on this green pressing.
This seems to be one of those albums that this format was made for, the detail on the artwork and overall package is incredible. Oh, and this is one of the heaviest and fastest records you'll ever hear. The cover art is by Florian and is a very impressive peice of work. Drawn especially for this album, there's so much going on no picture of mine could do it justice.

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First and only pressing, aswell as this run on green, there were 400 black and 100 clear. Clear weren't available to the public. Is the skull/band name thing a nod to Man Is The Bastard? Probably.

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Inside the gatefold-

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ANB summed up pretty well with the 2 pieces of artwork inside.

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Back cover, band shot. Katherine Katz might not look like she can scream so hard it melts your internal organs, but she can. Scott Hull's production of ANB on this record finally sounds as huge as it always needed to be in my opinion. Hull himself has said in an interview that he sees all of their releases up to this point as demos compared to this. Old ANB is usually always good, but this just sounds mind bindingly heavy.

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Instead of the more common 1 page insert that comes inside most records, this has a full size 28 page book. Packed with charming pictures to accompany the lyrics.

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I chose to show one of the less offensive cartoons. I could be wrong, but I'm not sure everyone who comes by here wants to see a picture of a woman with a giant penis.

Thursday 14 July 2011

ROT IN HELL / MOLOCH Split 7"

And so it came to pass - The end of a Rot In Hell era.
This is the latest Rot In Hell 7", a split with Moloch released on Feast Of Tentacles. This pressing on red limited to only 100 copies. It's the pressing that was for the record release show (more on that below) a couple of weekends ago, but leftovers were put up on the FOT distro and the RIH store. They sold out pretty quick, but you can still get it on black out out of 400.

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Letter pressed covers on a sort of thick brown card with red ink.

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The lyrics & credits are printed on individually stained pieces of thick paper, and there's a brown paper dust jacket.

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The RIH track, Cauldron Born, is incredible. You may know, I like Rot In Hell just about more than any other current hardcore band. Its easy to cite their obvious influences, and the band make no secret of them, but their own stamp on that sound is huge one and should not be under-estimated. They bring a level of chaos and exploding fury that leaves me slack jawed. Likewise - acoustic, harmonious yet haunting interludes/intro's (like the intro on this track) and English heathen-folk strings (see the closing section of Twilight Rouges on APBS) put them head and fucking shoulders above. English heathen-folk might be a genre I just invented, but it's what springs to mind when I listen to it. But anyway, as I said, this version was for the record release show in Nottingham with Moloch. Which they pulled out of suddenly, only to just as quickly announce that they were back on the bill, but that it would be vocalist Nate's last ever show. 
A real shame. Double gutted that I also couldn't get to the show. Me and a mate had talked about going and meeting up, but in the end I couldn't make it. Common sense prevailed on my part - my 8 week old daughter needs nappies changing and bottles preparing more than I need to lose my shit at a hardcore show. 
There are some other RIH records in various stages of being released (A Murder Of Crows being one of them) that might feature Nate as they seem to have been started before his departure (does the Integ/RIH split pre-order seem like a distant memory to anyone else?) but this seemed like a relevant record post to write about this. 
Rot In Hell will carry on, rumour has it, which is great news in my book and I'll look forward to hearing it. Tough vocal act to follow though.

This post has rambled on (again) but I need to mention Moloch on the flip side, who hail from Nottingham and feature Chris Braddock who runs Feast Of Tentacles.

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Imagine all the worlds misery and despair in musical form, with elements of Iron Monkey dirge and EHG misanthropic sludge and you're there. It ain't pretty, but it's crushing and very, very good

Tuesday 12 July 2011

Integrity - Detonate Worlds Plague & The Blackest Curse LP's

Arriving home from holiday last weekend I was greeted with a stack of junk mail, bills and a small red ticket. It was one of those Royal Mail tickets which informs you that because your letterbox is too small to fit a 12" record mailer through you now gotta do some legwork.
A short journey and a flash of my I.D earned me the pleasure of being passed a parcel over the counter. As I was handed it, I spied the stamp in the corner.

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This meant, along with a curious look from a cheery Royal Mail employee, that some Integrity records I'd ordered had arrived. I am of the opinion that Integrity are without a doubt one of the most important bands hardcore has. When they combined hardcore and metal all those years ago, they did so in such a brutally successful way that eventually inspired countless bands, total worship (Fucked Up's vocalist Damien has a side project - Millenial Reign - dedicated to sounding as much like Integrity as possible) and just as much hatred. Despite total line-up changes (with the exception of vocals) and intermittent releases of (in some opinion) varying quality over the years, vocalist Dwid Hellion remains a cult figure within heavy music and at the beating heart of the Holy Terror sound/sub-genre/cult/philosophy whatever you want to call it. Anyway, here endeth the lesson...... 
First up, their latest LP, Detonate Worlds Plague. This was released on Dwid's own label Holy Terror a few weeks ago. I picked it up from their webstore on red wax which is limited to 100. The colour is more of a red marble, with blue and white streaks in there.


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The front cover picture (credited to Dwid) is of some sort of woodland scene, maybe that's a house through the trees? But tilt it towards the light, and say hello to the Integ skull logo.

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Same with the back - the track listing is revealed in glossy print when in the light.

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Strange that this record seems to have had such a low key release following their hugely well received 'come back' LP The Blackest Curse released last year. The only personnel listed on the album are Dwid and Rob Orr and it's got a much murkier production than The Blackest Curse. Which is no complaint. The songs are good and there's a decent mix of Integ's sounds spread across the running time. We get fast and nasty Integ, we get an apocalyptic noise track, we get an urgent instrumental with wailing lead guitar and spoken sermons in the background and we get sombre, drawn out, slower Integ. And Orr's riffs and solos are incredible. Seriously. They are jaw-dropping in places. 
That turned into more of a biography & review than planned but nevermind.

While I was in the HT webstore waving my money around, I also got a copy of the aforementioned The Blackest Curse LP, something I've been neglecting to actually get on vinyl. As mentioned, this was Integ's first full length in a few years when it came out last year on Deathwish. It seemed to be reviewed extremely well and will tear you to shreds. It's a grim, dark album with plenty of manic, thrash influenced hardcore and dive bombing solos. I grabbed this on the first pressing on white, out of a run of 700. Process Cross in the centre. What else.

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The cover art suits the title of the album, with The Blackest splooge at the bottom. It looks like some sort of procession of dudes wearing black cloaks.

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Looks really cool though, works perfectly. And tilt it towards the light?

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Yup. You can just about make out the Integ skull and some Hebrew writings. Might have to get Google Translate on that.

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The back cover is once again hiding the track listing in glossy embossed print.

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True to Deathwish form, it came with a download code for the album, and I will take the time to say here that it wouldn't hurt for all vinyl releases (especially new releases) to do the same. If I'm at home, I make the enjoyable effort of putting the record on. In my car, stuck in traffic on the M6, I can't do that.

Saturday 9 July 2011

Protestant

A nice eBay bargain from last week. Self proclaimed DIY band Protestant play in a chaotic metal/hardcore crossover style, it's dark, its fast in parts, it's crushingly slow in others and it's raw. This is their self tiled 7" which was the first release on the Halo Of Flies label, owned by the groups vocalist Cory.

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The front and back artwork is silkscreened, which is limited to this first press of 437 on black, which came out in 2007. The 2nd press of this release dropped the silkscreen and had photocopied covers instead.

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The image on the B-side shows what looks like a dude about to be hanged. Which can't have been nice at the time.

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It looks really cool, and flipped over reveals the lyrics silkscreened on there too.

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The whole thing folds out, showing the artwork as a whole and the lyrics below. A pretty nice surprise, as the listing didn't mention just how cool the packaging was.

Sunday 3 July 2011

Weekend Nachos - Punish and Destroy

It can be quite good to get into a band relatively late on in. From hearing that first song that grabs you, you can have a huge back catalogue to get into instantly. It can also be a bit of a mixed blessing with the record collecting game, as you then get that indescribable urge to buy vinyl increase by 4 or 5 more records in varying degrees of rarity. Such is the case with this Saturday's delivery - powerviolence/sludge animals Weekend Nachos.
I only heard these a few months back, a song off their new EP 'Black Earth' released on A389. I was blown away and went straight on to their (brilliant) webstore and picked it up. I might aswell show you a picture of it, seeing as it's so nice.

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A short visit to Discogs later and I was on the hunt for their earlier stuff. It seemed easy to purchase re-presses of the 2 albums they had released so far in brand new condition from various web-stores, but I wanted to attempt some first press collecting. eBay soon hooked me up with the first press on Cowabunga Records from 2007 of their debut LP 'Punish and Destroy'. You can tell it's a first press because of the red font, fact fans. Second press had blue.

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The packaging and record suit the tone of this album perfectly. If you haven't heard them, WN mix the speed and ferocity of bands like Infest with crushing moments of sludge-doom riffing. It's break neck fast one second, then slow and pounding the next. It works real good. They're the heaviest I've heard in a long time.

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I'm not sure who the photo on the B-side label is of, but he looks like a wrong-un.

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Nice, clear insert with lyrics. Lyrical themes range from hatred of people, to hatred of other people, back to general hatred of everyone. It's cheery stuff. But shot through with a knowing sense of black humour. The insert also reveals that the album was recorded while the band were a 2 piece, with the guitarist doubling up on bass, and the vocalist also doing the drums. That's 4 jobs done by 2 people! What other blog gives you that kind of maths? No other blog, that's who.