Kill Life / 33 7" freebie (thanks Kieran)

This one has been sitting in my stack of records waiting to be put on here for a long time now, other things keep overtaking it.

A few months ago, a conversation with a fiend somehow ended up turning to Kill Life, hardcore's favourite mystery supergroup. I mentioned how I had the new flexi with Mike from EyeHateGod on vocals. He asked if I had the 1st 7", a split with Welsh band 33. I said I didn't. He asked if I wanted it. I said yes.

A few days later he comes round to hang out, listen to records and eat biscuits with me...

photographic evidence

...and brings it with him. A lovely freebie.

I'd not heard anything by 33 nor did I have an idea what they'd sound like but they're a treat. Like a hardcore beat-down with a bluesy rock & roll swagger, and it really works. Loved it.

Kill Life on the other side rip through 3 tracks in under 2 minutes  and unless you've been living under a hardcore shaped rock for the last 20 years you'll recognise the vocalist a mile off for a start.

Their stuff here is brilliant, ultra fast hardcore punk. The undoubted highlight of this whole 7" though is their last track 'Chimpanzee Eats Friend". A recorded 911 call of a woman reporting in a frantic voice that her pet chimpanzee is .... yup ... eating her friend, while palm muted guitars throb and drums pound in the background. It's all at once hilarious and/or terrifying.

500 copies on purple, released by 2 labels - All The Way Alive and Chapters. Spend money.

My mate who gave me this is Kieran (xkieranx on Instagram if you're down with that) who has recently moved to Swansea to ply his tattoo trade at the newly opened Swansea Tattoo Company shop. If you're near there or fancy a road trip to get inked, I recommend it. Stuff there is looking amazing, and Kieran is a top dude.

Collecting The Wonder Years - part 2. Leavenhouse 11:30 7"

The first 2 posts in this series logging me building a Wonder Years collection were simple to get hold of. Bought whilst still in print, from a webstore. This 7" marks the first of many that I'm going to have to fight other Wonder  Years fans to get hold of unless some private sale opportunity comes along.

The Leavenhouse 11:30 7" was only available as part of a pre-order package for The Upsides 1st press on No Sleep Records. 492 of these pressed (8 were rejected with screen print defects). The A side contains the song, the B side an incredible looking screen print. It looks amazing, almost like its been hand painted on.

Not much to look at from the outside, no actual sleeve to this. Just a dust jacket and a protective plastic SHEATH.

This surfaced on Ebay UK, which was kinda surprising as there is a serious imbalance between UK and Ebay US when it comes to The Wonder Years, especially rarities. I genuinely didn't think I'd win this to be honest, it's the first Wonder Years rarity I'd perused and despite looking on Popsike I wasn't too sure how it would go. It reached a total number of 15 bids, 4 from me and the rest from four other dudes. £16.08 won it for me in the end (I put £20 on) with me being £1.08 ahead.

In related TWY collecting news, I achieved my little target-within-a-target today of landing all of the LP's. I wanted to get these locked down before I go throwing my money all over the internet in the pursuit of the rest. All I need now is for it to arrive from Houston,Texas and land safely in Merry Olde. More on that next time.

Code Orange Kids - Cycles 7" on pink

Browsing on Bandcamp a few weeks ago I noticed the page for a fairly new band I've been hearing a lot about, Code Orange Kids.

Now I'm not sure what it is exactly, but when I hear great thing after great thing about a new band I've not heard anything by I sometimes just shut off to all the noise. Could be I feel that all the excitement of discovery has been taken out of it. I'ts been drummed into me that they're great ; what more is there to know. Everyone already seems to love it, I'll just move on. Or it could be that I'm just being a miserable fucker.

But anyway, seeing as it required a mere 2 clicks from my finger, I listened to their EP Cycles. And then did so again. And again. And then I paid $5 for a download of it. And then kept listening to it until I tracked down a copy of the 7" and bought that too. Released on Mayfly, pressed on pink and limited to 400.

The first press is all sold out and Mayfly has launched a 2nd press, so it seems like they're doing pretty good. Well deserved too, this EP is phenomenal. So good I bought it twice within an hour. Here in England, for that kind of money I could've bought 240 PG Tips Pyramind tea-bags.

Collecting The Wonder Years - part 1. The Upsides 2nd press, purple /500 & discography pressing info

This is the 2nd press of The Wonder Years' 2nd LP, and their first to get a vinyl release. The Upsides is completely untouchable. This press handled by Run For Cover Records and was put out last year. It differs from the 1st press with different artwork and its housed in a gate fold sleeve which is the reason I'm after this and a 1st press to hit the target. Wasn't too difficult getting hold of it, though the UK distro I got it from is now out of stock of all colours. I ordered a brown, the only one they had, but was e-mailed asking if a purple was ok as the browns were all gone.  RFC still has some and there's probably a few dotted around various places. 2000 pressed in total across 4 colours: brown, purple, clear and yellow.

I'm yet to hold a 1st press in my hands (edit: got one now), but this 2nd press is pretty impressive. Nice marbling on the record itself as well. To be honest, I prefer this cover art. 

So a relatively simple first addition, the next TWY post will  feature something a bit rarer that I had to work a bit harder  spend a lot more to get. 

Right, if the thought of reading a fuck load of pressing info for TWY discography  fills you with boredom, I'd look away now. This is here first and foremost for my reference. A place where all the info from multiple websites is all in one relevant place. Maybe it will aid other collectors too. If I'm wrong on any of it or missing any of it (tests etc) , please help me out and comment.

Some of those subscription 7"s are going to be a challenge.

Won't Be Pathetic Forever - 7" EP
1st Press
No Sleep Records   - 2008    
(Each with a color coordinated screened jacket)
20 Test Pressing (Black)
100 Purple
200 Brown
200 Orange
30 Record Release (10 Purple/10 Brown/10 Orange - Arigato Pack)
30 Cornerstone (10 Purple/10 Brown/10 Orange - Arigato Pack)

2nd Press 
No Sleep Records - 2008
(Jackets were misprinted and say FRONT on the cover)
1000 Black

3rd Press
No Sleep Records - 2010
500 Purple/Yellow Marble
500 Orange/White Marble


split with All Or Nothing titled Distances - 7"
No Sleep Records - 2009
20 Test Pressing (Black)
300 White w/ Blue/Red Splatter 300 White w/ Red Splatter
400 Clear Blue


split with Fallen From The Sky - Under The Influence Vol. 13 7"
Suburban Home Records - 2009
300 transparent brown (whiskey coke colored)
700 transparent blue vinyl.

The Upsides - 12" LP
1st press
No Sleep Records  - 2010        
20 Test Pressing (Black)
150 Record Release (Black Vinyl, 30 records for each of the 5 record release shows with different spray painted dust sleeves for each city)
200 Blue
300 Orange GOT THIS ONE!
400 White (Hot Topic Exclusive)
450 Black

2nd press
Run For Cover Records - 2011
500 Purple GOT THIS ONE!
500 Brown
500 Clear
500 Yellow


Leavenhouse - The Upsides 1st press pre-order exclusive one sided screen print 7"
No Sleep Records - 2010
20 Test Pressing (Black)
50 Purple Screen Print (Friends Press)
492 Grey Screen Print GOT THIS ONE!
8 Grey Screen Print Rejects


split with Heroes For Hire 7" - Australian release only coinciding with 1st Australian Tour
Boomtown Records - 2010
Half Green / Half White
Half Red / Half White
Half Green / Half Yellow


Suburbia: I've Given You All And Now I'm Nothing - 12" LP
No Sleep Records - 2011
20 Test Pressing (Black)
500 Orange/Gray GOT THIS ONE!
500 Baby Blue
500 Gray
600 Orange (Hot Topic Exclusive)
1000 Black



Don't Let Me Cave In - Suburbia... CD pre-order exclusive 7"
Hopeless Records - 2011
500 grey marble

Don't Let Me Cave In - No Sleep Records subscriber exclusive 7"
No Sleep Records 2011
35 pressed, black, hand numbered


Came Out Swinging - Alternative Press Magazine 2011 Subscription Exclusive 7" 
250 Green

split with Stay Ahead Of The Weather - 7"
Hopeless records - 2012
200 Black
300 Half Clear Half Black GOT THIS ONE!
500 Clear w/ Black Splatter

Collecting The Wonder Years - Introduction & Suburbia 1st press orange & grey /500

It's time for a new crusade.

It's been a while since I feel like I've concentrated on a particular band and put a lot of effort into hunting down and completing their discography. I've decided I'm going to do exactly that with The Wonder Years. Introduced to them by various members of Birmingham's Best Band, they've been a favorite of mine for a couple of years but I only own one LP on actual vinyl. My iPod is full of their songs, but my record shelves are seriously lacking in Soupy and co. Listening to them the other day I thought "this is a madness, and I must change it".

In my opinion, TWY, along with bands like Iron Chic, Such Gold  and The Story So Far sum up just about everything that's been right about pop-punk in the last few years. The resurgence of late has seen some incredible bands come about. I didn't consider it a genre that I could ever give a fuck about again, but I've been proven so wrong.

So the hunt begins. The one release I do have is this one: Suburbia I Have Given You All And Now I Am Nothing.

The orange/grey split 1st press of their 3rd LP released by No Sleep Records last year and limited to 500. I had no problems bagging one of these, I was waiting in line at pre-order stage when it was announced. I've got a couple of TWY records on the way in the post, a couple of records from later presses that were easy to round up and ill post about them when they arrive. But it gets a little trickier from here on out.

My criteria at the moment is simple: to reach my goal of owning a complete discography I want at least 1 copy of each of their records pressed so far, with 1st press being the ultimate aim but I'll have no problem picking up a later press if one becomes available. The one exception with this rule being their 2nd LP The Upsides. The 2nd press of this was in a gatefold with different cover art. I consider this different enough to warrant getting both a 1st and 2nd press to consider it a complete discography.

Their first LP was a CD release only so that rules that one out but as well as both presses of the 2nd LP to get there's a load of 7"s : a mixture of EP's, splits, pre-order exclusives and subscription only deals. One subscriber 7" of the track Don't Let Me Cave In was limited to 35 copies. Jesus Christ what am I doing to myself.

So that's my goal. Let's go! Multiple copies of the same record, test presses and record release presses are obviously fair game, but 1 copy of everything is my primary goal at this stage.

My next TWY post that I do when I've received the stuff that's on it's way I'll probably include a back catalogue list with pressing info to the best of my knowledge so I can nerd out over the information all in one handy Internet place and maybe help anyone else who might want to know someday. The information is already out there, but who wants to flick between multiple websites? Not this dickhead.

Cease To Exist 7"

A recent joint release by Hemlock 13 and Feast Of Tentacles - the debut vinyl appearance of UK band Cease To Exist. The first thing I need to mention is the party-bag levels of STUFF that came inside the mailer

Sticker, patches, flyers, kitchen sinks, it's all in there. Lovely. Which is not a word that can be used to describe Cease To Exist, and I mean that in a very good way. They're as grim as it gets, raw and nasty. Redlining guitars, insane death metal vocals and a knack for ripping through fast hardcore stomps switching straight into ultra slow death jams. Yeah, I was pretty impressed. The last track of side 2 is awesome, a pounding sludge crawl fading out with feedback screeches and fucked up chanting. Wow. In the space of a few minutes they make one fuck of an impression.

Pretty low amount of these pressed, all on black. I think it was around 300. Hemlock had 135 copies for sale which came stamped and numbered inside the sleeve

Sweet sixteen. Great center labels too

And if you were paying attention in HC History class, you should have no trouble spotting the two labels nodded to in these two stickers

Copies still on sale at H13 and FOT

Guilty 7"

I have a tendency of buying a release by a band I've never heard of based purely on hearing good things or what record label it comes out on. Nothing new among record collectors / music lovers there but it can be a gamble. Sometimes, I'll stumble across one of the best things I've heard in ages. Other times, not so much.

This 7" by Swedish band Guilty was put out a few weeks back by Carry The Weight. Which is the sole reason I clicked Add To Cart. But whaddaya know? Turns out its great.

This was a joint release spread across 3 labels, with a 1000 pressed in total split between 3 colours and plain ol' black. CTW here in the UK had an exclusive orange/black/all sorts splatter out of 300, Green Menace had 300 on blue/ white swirl and Six Feet Under had 300 of another colour (unsure what) with it rounded up to a clean G with 100 black. NUMBERS. I kept it simple, and just ordered from CTW the one that looks like a tiger.

ctw019, in case you were wondering.

I was really happy with this. Pleasantly surprised (Not that I should have been surprised with CTW. Have you SEEN what they recently did with the Wayfarer box set?!) with the package, the color and the band. Think hardcore/thrash hybrid, if you like anything like that or stuff with epic solo's and sweeping acoustic lead outs with wailing guitars then you'll dig this. They do nothing new, but they does it good. There are still copies left literally all over the world.

Hard To Swallow - Protected By The Ejaculation Of Serpents

Hard To Swallow are a band that time seems to have largely forgotten about. An excellent mid-to-late 90's UK grind band, who released a handful of splits and one full length. In all honesty, the only reason that I've ever heard of them is because of Iron Monkey. What you may not know (how would you?) is that Iron Monkey are easily one of my favorite bands in the known universe. Hailing from Nottingham (around an hour from where I live, geography fans) they created a stoner influenced doom/sludge sledgehammer-of-hatred type sound. Truly abrasive and totally misanthropic, yet with the most amazing grooves. The late Johnny Morrow's vocals are out of this world. Literally! He sounds inhuman. I hated them the first time I heard them on a compilation CD, but something must have gripped me and years later at some hardcore all dayer somewhere around '99 - 2000 (probably), I saw their 2nd LP in a distro and picked it up on a whim. I was blown away, and still listen to it constantly. Anyway! Justin Greaves and Jim Rushby were in Hard To Swallow & Iron Monkey at sort of the same time. Also, Rushby was in Ironside in the early 90's, who you'll have probably heard in some form even if you don't know it, cause these dudes covered one of their songs. I'm in danger of losing my point here, in fact I may already have done so. Listening to HTS a few weeks ago, I was hit by a couple of realizations.

1) I do prefer the songs on the splits to the songs on the full length but the full length DOES feature Johnny Morrow on guest vocals.

2) It's still a brilliant, shambolic, brutal & relentlessly nasty LP that I don't own on vinyl and suddenly needed to.

3) Any band that uses The Wicker Man references is a band I'll listen to.

So I was surprised to find that, despite only 1000 copies of it being pressed back in 1999, the label still had some. Released by Household Name (now there's a label I had LONG forgotten about) and pressed on white. 

The tracks featured here were originally on a CD along with all of their songs from the splits and that was originally released in 1996, with different cover art. When it was pressed onto vinyl, just the new material made it across and with a bit of remastering.

One or some of the dudes from HTS went on to play in Dead Inside, who I saw play years ago upstairs in some crappy pub. In fact I think that the band I was in at the time possibly played that night too, which is why I was there. Anyways I bought a sticker from them and stuck it on my guitar where it still lives in a faded capacity. Loooooong after I even have any idea what they sounded like

From the Isle Of Thanet

Well haven't they done well. A little over 6 months since Unhloly Majesty's debut tape vanished in the blink of a light detecting organ, they're Terrorizer's Band Of The Day, they're getting positive press from here, there and everywhere and now A389 have pressed the tracks from that tape on a run of vinyl. It's well deserved too, cause UnMaj are great. It's cool to see a UK band rise to prominence so quickly, I could almost get patriotic.

I wrote about the tape back here, but enough about me being an OG.

There are two pressings of this: clear out of 150, and a run on black too. A389 still have copies of both available. If you like Ringworm (you DO like Ringworm, don't you?!) then you'll like this. This will sell out.

A tidy little package. The Owl & The Serpent is one of the best songs of last year. Fact. This whole EP is up for free download here, and cause I love you, I'll embed the tracks below.

Integrity - Kingdom Of Heaven 7"

This new Integrity 7" features 3 old tracks, recorded 20 years ago. Released both as a 20th anniversary marker and in tribute to former drummer Dave Araca, present on these recordings before his untimely death. Even now, these tracks are unfuckwithable. Seriously. 'Kingdom Of Heaven'? Still sounds amazing. 'Rebirth'? I don't think they ever sounded more evil.  I listen to Den Of Iniquity a heck of a lot, mainly for those 2 tracks I just mentioned, so having these alternative takes (this 7" also includes 'Eighteen') on a cool limited pressing leads to good times all around.

I'm believe that the artwork on this is from Dwid. It looks excellent, is dark as hell and goes hand in hand with some of the other cover art he's done recently for Cape Of Bats (see below) and the new Sutekh Hexen LP.

You can just about see the Integ skull visible in the light there.

Similarly, the back cover shows off some invisible crosses when titled in the light

Released on A389, this white pressing limited to 150 and is now sold out. There was also a run on black, which is still available. 

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.