Goodbye Horses

You know that harrowing scene in Silence Of The Lambs where Buffalo Bill tucks his manhood in between his legs, drapes himself in some weird shawl and dances around in front of a mirror while tweaking his nipples and asking the mirror "would you fuck me?" with Goodbye Horses by Q Lazzarus playing on his stereo in the background? No?

Well I do. And it's for that reason that 80's pop music scares the shit out of me. It fills me with a sense of unease and dread and leaves me feeling like I need a shower. This band, Anne, make me think of 80's pop music.

This is the 2nd record I threatened to post about last time, which I bought at the same time as Pale Creation from A389. Marking a strong departure from the label, Anne have a dream like, floaty sound to them and barely a distorted guitar in sight. Wether or not they freak you out like they do me is up for question.The vinyl here looks amazing, sort of a frosted purple. 

I genuinely struggle to listen to this without feeling a bit weird. Anyone know a good psychiatrist?

Enforcers - End Of Time

These next couple of posts are gonna be of 2 debut records that came with the Pale Creation 12" I ordered last year from A389, so in the strange chance you're relying on this site for up-to date music releases, then I'm horrendously out of step. Both bands I hadn't heard a lot of before their LP's turned up, so I wanted to wait until I had given them a proper listen before stringing some sentences together. This first one is Enforcer's album End Of Time.

Following my recent revelation that post-Age Of Quarrel Cro-Mags is really fucking good Cro-Mags, I have a new frame of reference and can now spout Best Wishes-era comparisons like anybody else. Which is handy with this band.

They sound like um . . . Best Wishes-era Cro Mags. With a bit of NYHC style bounce thrown in.
Pressed on red, not sure how many. There's a black pressing too, but I ordered the colored bundle package.

It's a good album, just not particularly exciting. The thing that jumped out at me the most was all the howling winds between the songs, which reminded me of Crom (this Crom, not that Crom) who are lot more fun (not many bands can match up to drug addled Conan-worship metal) so I put Crom on. I've been back to this a couple times since, but I cant shake the fact that Deal With It pull off this shit with much more energy and spark. But if you fancy listening to something that sounds like Best Wishes, and want to avoid bands that start with the letter D, then go for it.

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.

Bane - Give Blood 10th Anniversary (with free science)

Firstly, as my first post of the new year I'd like to say a quick thank you to everyone who has checked out this blog, left a comment, linked to me from a forum post, said thank you for featuring their record or added me to their Blogger sidebar. I truly appreciate it, so thank you for all of the support. I've been trying to get this post up on here for days now, keep on somehow not finding the time. Our 8 month old daughter started crawling a few days ago. I thought a baby was a full time job before this. How wrong I was! Now, my first post of a new year sees me going back in time a ways...

2001 is the year I got into hardcore properly. I was graduating from a background which at the time was dominated with Nitro / Fat pop-punk, retrospectively shitty nu-metal and far less dodgy non-nail varnish metal, and I had truly found my sound. As well as a boat load of catching up to do (this compilation was bought for me as a present that year and opened my eyes right up to a lot of the older stuff), that year saw 3 records come out that influenced me and my taste in music immensely. Background Music, Jane Doe and this one. The one that is still on heavy rotation and that I still listen to more than any other album that came out back then. It is of course (these posts do have to have a title, I'm aware there is no suspense here) Bane's Give Blood, and this is the 10th Anniversary repress released at the tail end of last year on Triple B. I'm confident that you don't need telling why this album is incredible, so I'll just get on with it.

Instead of using the original cover art, a new sleeve has been put together. White gatefold, with an embossed red cross on the front. Simple & striking. Inside the gatefold, some photos of Bane through the ages and a message from the band with their thoughts on this anniversary repress and what this album means to them.

Originally when this went up for sale on BBB, you couldn't pick and choose which colour you ordered. It was purely on a first come, first served basis. The nerd in me was concerned I'd miss the rarer colour, but thankfully middle of the night baby feeds allowed me to catch this just after it went on sale and snag the red/white splatter out of 200. 

That little symbol above the Triple B banner makes me see a strawberry whenever I look at this. Anybody else? The original cover art is on the front of the 16 page booklet that comes inside. This seems to be a straight reproduction of the original CD booklet if I remember it right (no way am I going up in the attic to find the CD, too cold) blown up to record sleeve side (scientific measurements there) and looking sweet. 

An amazing record, given just the treatment it deserves. As we all know, buying just the one record would be rude (besides not being allowed as per BBB's overseas orders policy) so I ordered the 2 new colours from the 2nd press of the Boston 6:58pm 7" edition of Bane's ambitious time-and-place CD/7" series. One on solid yellow, one on clear green.

I gotta say, I've never been too keen on the cover art for this series. It always reminded me of an educational infographic. Something like this:

No, I have no idea either.