Tough Luck story for a great label

My man Mario over at Across Your Face has written a couple of great pieces recently entitled 'How to run your label', where he's focused on record labels he feels have gone the extra mile for what ever reason. Well I'm gonna ride his coat tails a little here and do the same, coincidently around a release that I read about on his blog.
The release in question is this - Tough Luck - Fifth Column on Last Anthem Records. After reading about it on Across Your Face and the comparisons made to Backtrack I didn't hesitate to cruise straight over to the Last Anthem site and snap one up. Glad I did.

Just to be different to Mario who had the Gold version of the release I ordered the red and white split version. A little later Phil from Last Anthem mailed me to say they didn't have that version left but he would send another version and chuck in a freebie to sweeten the deal. Before I had chance to reply though he mailed again saying to ignore him as he had now found what I presume was the last copy of the red and white split. Of course I replied saying thanks but was jokingly unhappy with his tease of a freebie, he told me not to worry and he'd still hook me up. Boy did he..as you can see he sent me the red/white AND gold versions of the record.

And it really is a cracking record, the Backtrack similarity's are definitely there for all to hear, but as I'm a huge fan of that band I'm more than okay with that. Tough Luck have enough about them to stand on their own two feet with seven blisteringly good tracks here. I challenge anyone reading this to listen to the end riff of 'Fixes Of Hurt' MP3 here and not wanna start moshing hard. This is definitely gonna get some spins on my turntable. And this will be a band I'll be following from now on. No idea of pressing numbers but at a guess I'd say red and white is the rarest???

The reason I'm wanting to give Last Anthem a special mention though as if that wasn't enough, is that Phil's 'freebie' didn't stop there, no, there were FOUR more records in the package that arrived (in a week from the states I hasten to add).

Crooked Ways - Crimes Of Passion on Blue Marble

Crooked Ways - How To Break Hearts on Black Marble

Crooked Ways play some pretty decent melodic hardcore

Pushing On - S/T on Maroon vinyl

Good stuff from Pushing On. Kinda snotty youth-crew with a Minor Threat/very early Beastie Boys vibe. I like it.

Punchout VS Vengeance - Split on Green (this might be the thickest 7" I've ever seen)

Both bands are similar and at the heavier end of the spectrum, Vengeance in particular impressed me as they are a little more straight up than Punchout who are more of a Metal-core style band from what's on display here. Good stuff though.

So there ya go. When you buy as many records as I and certainly my fellow bloggers do, I always think those labels that impress for what ever reason deserve a special mention, and certainly Phil went beyond the call of duty here. Ironically after I'd made my initial purchase I spotted another record I fancied checking out but thought I'd better wait before ordering it, to see what Last Anthems service was like. I'm gonna head over now and make that order.

If you want to check out Tough Luck head over to the store, theres still copies available http://lastanthemrecords.storenvy.com/