Cape Of Bats - Transylvania

I don't ever remember feeling scared of Vampires. They just never seemed to bother me. Werewolves? God yeah. I had sleepless night for days when I unwisely chose to watch American Werewolf In London against the BBFC's advisement. Never answer the door without the safety chain on kids, it could be werewolves in Nazi uniforms. Vampires nowadays seem even less bothersome. All I can think of is Robert Pattinson jumping from branch to branch like a fucking Marmoset looking like he's about to start crying about that miserable chick Bella. SHE'S NOT LOYAL TO YOU EDWARD!

Anyway, vinyl. Right.

Cape Of Bats bring the vampire with a seriousness with their new 7" released on Holy Terror. Entitled Transylvania and themed around the Irish vampiric myth of Abhartach, the alternatively claimed inspiration for Bram Stoker's Dracula by some historians. Stoker was Irish, so you can see where they're coming from I guess. Celtic myth and legend fascinate me, so tie that in with some seriously nasty sounding hardcore black metal punk and I'm all in. It's a brilliant story, a truly fascinating myth and just the sort of treatment the concept of vampires deserves. I can't help but hear Infest when I listen to the first track, the way it goes from mid-paced to fast and back again, raging all the way. Im loving everything I've heard from Cape Of Bats, and I want more.

Pressed on yellow, a run of 200. This was released in conjunction with another label called Grim Winds who are handling the black pressing, with the yellow being exclusive to Holy Terror. I think I'm right in saying that Grim Winds is the bands own label. They don't seem to have their copies for sale yet though, dunno what the deal is there.

Get some learning done with the insert, a recounting of the Abhartach legend.

Organized Crime Records Halloween 2011 Surprise *SPOILERS!*

If you are waiting on this surprise package yourself and would like it to actually be a surprise when you open it up, I suggest you look away right now. Well, don't look away, as you'll just be sitting at your computer or with your phone in your hand looking in the opposite direction. That's just silly. But certainly get the heck off this page if you want the contents of this to remain a mystery, cause I'm about to open it up and expose its innards.

Still with me? Good. Let's go.

Last Halloween, like the year before, Organized Crime Records put a mystery package up for pre-order. All that was revealed was that it would include a shirt of some kind, as they took your size. The rest? Who knows. Based on the fact that last years contained one-off glow in the dark Integrity records and that this years was described as a 'must for fans of Holy Terror', I didn't think twice.

Opening up the parcel, I'm greeted with a t-shirt. A really cool t-shirt actually, with a bit of a teaser of whats to come judging from the logo's on the sleeves. More on the shirt later, we knew that was a dead cert. On to the secret business. Wrapped up in the t-shirt is a black envelope, with a black inked Holy Terror logo.

Flip that over to reveal the entrance, sealed with a wax Holy Terror stamp

Carefully easing that free, inside is a 6" record. The first side showing a logo that you might recognize

Vegas! Their Never To Wake LP was a favorite of mine from last year, so I was pretty happy that some new music from them was suddenly in my grasp. Their track on this split is wonderful. Vegas demonstrate two styles usually - balls out ferocity or haunting, ethereal folk. This track here is of the latter, and is incredible. Their side of the split is accompanied by a sheet giving a bit of background and explanation to the track

So, side 1 covered. Flip the sleeve over to reveal the logo of the 2nd mystery band

Yup. None other than Rot In Hell. It would be fair to say, and no surprise to anyone who has read previous posts or knows me in real life (hey, it could happen) that these are pretty much a favorite band of mine. So the only way this package could have been better is if they'd have fell out of the sleeve, blasted through Iron Halo in my living room and then fucked off back up the M6. Their side has the lyrics to their track 'Armoured Gideon' on the flip side to the sheet.

With a nod to di6 on the label

Unsurprisingly, I lost my shit to this track. I'm sure I've heard this track somewhere, or at least recognize the title. But I definitely hadn't heard it in all its studio recorded glory. Sounds real good. Their new vocalist is still safely under wraps though. This is Bean-era RIH.

The main inner sleeve is on a black card insert, silver inked with the logo's and a curious wolf/flower thing.

Hand numbered too. I think I remember the announcement saying these were out of 150, but some more must have got through as this says 165. I got number 91.

All in all, pretty amazing. Oh, and an ultra shiny RIH/VEGAS hybrid sticker

 The t-shirt that came with it is great, with the wolf/flower thing on the front, the bands logo's on the sleeves and a reminder on the back of when I bought it, just in case I ever get confused.

A truly excellent package, the sort of thing that inspired me to run this silly blog in the first place.

Pale Creation - Twilight Haunt

Well, Christmas seems to be well and truly winding down now. The boxes of chocolates are down to the ones that nobody eats and the tree is starting to really display the fact that it was murdered over 2 weeks ago now and would like to be placed outside to rot with dignity.

Christmas is a big thing in our house and across our whole family, we love it. We cooked Christmas dinner at our house this year ('we' being subjective, my partner did the majority) for her side of the family in the day, then had my side over at night for dinner-aftermath-coma drinks and snacks. Then a party at her mums on Boxing day. And then a party at my Dads the day after that. So now the post-Christmas blues are really setting in. A melancholy mood calls for a melancholy record, so it's fitting that just before the festivities kicked off, this turned up - the recent vinyl pressing of Pale Creation's Twilight Haunt LP. Only available on CD up until now (or free download courtesy of HolyTerror.com) A389 have put this out and it looks great.

Original artwork blown up to fit the sleeve and it's pressed on a black and blue splatter (again, looking so good) or 'Blue Storm' as it was called officially. Only 250 pressed, and it's one of those 'never to be repressed' deals.

This album came out first in 1999 and is still their only full length release. If you listen to their output before this LP, they had kind of a cheesy thrash sound so it's pretty amazing how different they sound on this. Mid-paced, sorrowful and extremely dark, there's a metallic crispness and crunch to the rhythm section but with the vocals and lead guitars drenched in reverb it lends the whole affair and desolate and hollow vibe, with an incredible atmosphere. A very interesting addition to the Holy Terror collective.

MIIIIIIICHAAAAAAA

Returning briefly to the theme of the post a while ago about those 2 Cro-Mags records, here's something else I bought from Endless Quest. Just after paying for the Cro-Mags I noticed there was a copy of the Those Who Fear Tomorrow 2010 repress for sale, one of the rarer 1st pressings on a sort of smoky clear vinyl with a numbered Kasner outer sleeve. I'd not bothered with any of the Integrity represses that Organized Crime put out last year, and always wished that I had once the 1st press was long gone. So I snapped this up, and sent some more pennies down the magical PayPay chute. Sleeping on this worked out eventually.

The sleeve you see above, as you may know, isn't the standard TWFT sleeve, this is the specially drawn sleeve for this version by Cleveland artist Stephen Kasner. It continues onto the back, but I forgot to take a picture of that.

As you can see, this run with the Kasner sleeve and vinyl colour was limited to 320 and the sleeves hand numbered.

Slide that off and the regular sleeve is underneath. The dust jackets are stamped, and the vinyl is a dark clear color, held up to the light, its kinda smoky.

Glossy clear ink used to hide the Integrity skull printed over the lyrics, which when revealed shows that the lyrics are printed to match the shape. Pretty cool. Same for the track listing on the back. And Dwid here looks a little like Kurt Cobain. Originally released in 1992, and pound for pound, one of the best hardcore albums ever recorded in my opinion.

Vegas - Never To Wake 12"

Its only been about ten minutes since I posted about some Holy Terror. Time for some more right? Vegas's 'Never To Wake' 12". This was a one time only pressing of 300, released on Hellfish.

One of the core Holy Terror bands, Vegas (or sometimes VVegas) play a sinister take on the Integ-inspired metal/hardcore crossover but with occasional atmospheric, ghostly acoustic sections. Backwards guitar, whispered & hoarse spoken vocals, clean guitar picking over faint walls of noise and distant metal solos. Its Holy Terror folk. They compliment the chaos of the other tracks perfectly, and if you dig that stuff at all, Vegas are for you.

Never To Wake is kind of a Vegas discography with the tracks from the 'Never' and 'Wake' albums (see what they did with the title?) almost all here. Although the 'Never' CD was a re-release of the 'Wake' CD anyway. Theres a few differences on this vinyl pressing though. The tracks from those two CD's are rearranged into a different order and the titles translated into German.

Given that the tracklisting between the Never and Wake CD's was also different (tracks seemingly titled wrong, but who's to say which one is correct?) I genuinely have no idea anymore what some of these songs are called. Mis-information and mystery are staples of the Holy Terror thing though so I'm into it. That sort of thing would normally slowly drive me insane. There's extra tracks too, a creepy (and totally brilliant) Depeche Mode (!) cover and a few tracks recorded live from a show in Japan. These sound incredible, raw and nasty as hell.

This vinyl edition has new artwork too. We get a certain California Girl in a clip from one of her videos, but made to look partially decomposed.

It's printed on a sort of silver card, looks great. There's a space for hand numbering (it's out of 250 as the first 50 had a special screen-printed sleeve I think) but it's been left blank. If you assumed that this would bother me, you are correct.

So all in all this is an awesome record, with tracklisting, content and cover art all exclusive to this release. Only 300 ever made, never to be repressed. Essential I'd say. There's still a few knocking around in various hardcore web-stores. Hunt them down.

Gehenna - The War Of The Sons Of Light And The Suns Of Darkness. Andthe split with Blind To Faith.

When is buying records more enjoyable than usual? When you're not paying for them...

These two were bought by way of a Deathwish voucher, given to me from my brother for my birthday a few weeks ago. Deathwish themselves had nothing that tickled my fancy so I tapped up their brilliant distro for two Gehenna releases on A389 Records.

The infamous Gehenna. Dark & chaotic Holy Terror style. Their War Of The Sons Of Light and The Suns Of Darkness LP is a collection of early cassette, split 7" and unreleased tracks all from around 94-95. All out of print since forever and kindly reissued by A389 on grey/red haze vinyl. More of a red with grey explosion, but still looks good. Limited to 200. 

I'm into the Medieval satanic end-times artwork. Suits it all perfectly. Gehenna in the early days had a reputation for intense and violent live shows, rumours of stabbings and all sorts. A lot of it is probably well constructed mystique but there aint no doubting that they're the real deal. And vocalist Mike Apocalypse (or Mike Cheese or a bunch of other names) certainly gives zero fucks in interviews.

Definatley a party i wouldn't want to go to. All the demons is one thing, but being force fed frogs? I'm out. No matter how well it may enlighten the path to wherever. This LP is raw and nasty and totally brilliant. And so with the rest of my Deathwish Dollars, i snapped up the Gehenna /  Blind To Faith split.

This came out last year. Now im no scaredy little girl, but the Gehenna tracks are terrifying. Raw production, oddly placed psychedelic lead guitar drenched in reverb and Mike's creature-from-hell vocals. Its pretty amazing.

Great artwork too by Szymon Siech. Blind To Faith on the B-side feature members of Rise & Fall and play a stripped back, pretty dark metal punk hybrid. They've got a full length out on Holy Terror Records which i've got iPod style and it's brilliant. Something else for the shopping list. This split pressed on a grey marble. I have no clue about pressing amounts but i'd imagine its somewhere in the hundreds.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

Part 2 of ROT IN HELL - 7"s.

As promised, the 2nd part of my Rot In Hell vinyl, the 7"s. This will be the last post of stuff already in my collection. New arrivals from here on out!

Some of the 7"s here are not on the most limited runs. I imagine this is like looking at your girlfriend knowing you only went with her cause you wanted to shag her mate. You still love her and all that, but secretly you know she was your second choice. Such is the nature of this vinyl beast, sometimes you just miss out. But they're out there, and one day some silly sod will sell them to me.

A good place to start - the Sins Of Malice demo. A really impressive package this one. Even better is the fact that a good friend of mine up North sent me this for free. He may be grooming me for sexual favours at a later date, and I don't mind that.

Flip it over to reveal foldy cardboard Process Cross

Open it up - Spray painted picture of Robert DeGrimston on the flip-side, lyric sheet, spray painted dust jacket with hand numbering. I got 028/219.

Not bad for a demo! The tracks on here (one of which ended up re-recorded on the APBS lp ) are raw as bollocks and sound incredible.

Next, RIH split with Brain Dead - Millennial Psychosis'. The RIH track on here is my favourite thing they've done. Its listed as 2 tracks but it never actually stops, it's one long awesome beast.

Curious plastic dust jacket. Joint release by Rumour Control & Feast Of Tentacles records. Brain Dead on the other side are a UK Powerviolence band from Leicester. I like these a lot from what I've heard here and on a Rumour Control compilation 7" I've got. Well worth checking out if you like it fast as fuck one minute then slow and crusty the next. All good.

Next, RIH & The Process split - 'The Works Of Fate'

Great artwork by Scrawled Design.

Really detailed. The devil cradling a baby goat? Just what you need.

The RIH track features guest whispering by Dwid.

The Process are a UK metallic hardcore band. From the spoken part at the end of their song it sounds like they're actually from somewhere in Scotland. Hadn't heard them before this but I was impressed. Not as fast as RIH but channeling the same spirit. They've got a full length out now called Rosenkreutz, but it's only on CD for the time being, vinyl to follow. I can wait...

This 7" released by Feast Of Tentacles and limited to 500.

RIH & Wayfarer split. Amazing artwork on this one, again by Scrawled Design.

Thick gatefold, pressed on Grey 180g and limited to 200. Astonishing amount of effort put into a 7". Released by Carry The Weight records.

Wayfarer are another UK hardcore band, who again I hadn't heard of. After hearing this I got more of their releases, a full length and a 7" both on CTW records. They're pounding, crunchy metallic hardcore, in the vein of New Lows or Thirty Seconds Until Armageddon. If that sounds good to you then check them out, you will not be disappointed. They seem to use a lot of Norse mythology for their subject matter, which to a guy like me who knows fuck all about Norse mythology, somehow makes it even cooler.

Finally, RIH & Horders split - 'The Omega Suite'

If you didn't look at the sleeve and just stuck this on, you'd have no idea this was RIH. It's not Nate on vocals, it's one of the guitarists. Instead of dark raging hardcore, it's dark acoustic pagan folk. I have not much experience of pagan folk on which to base that link but still that's what springs to mind. Haunting acoustic guitar and clean sung mantra-like vocals repeating 'god is man, man is god'. I can imagine the residents of Summerisle dancing around to this while they burn Edward Woodward. Despite being the polar opposite musically of what they normally sound like, it works perfectly. The art is awesome, all done by Give Up.

Horders are the musical side project of designer Give Up, and provide 2 tracks of dark instrumentals. Clean, slightly out of tune guitar picks out a tune over faint distorted chords. It's creepy stuff, really good accompaniment to the Rot side.

Released on Feast Of Tentacles, a run of 400.

That's about the size of it.