"You've Got Enough Records!!"

"Where are we going?" asked my daughter, conveniently forgetting the deal we'd made not ten minutes ago that saw her get a go on a fairground ride for her co-operation in venturing with me without complaint to the record store we were in the city centre to visit. On being reminded again she added with some annoyance "You've got enough records!". "Well I'm just going for a look" I said...So a, I'm telling lies to a child and b, I'm feeling the need to explain myself on the record buying...what's wrong with me??

Anyway, child complaints aside here's what I picked up along with the Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats record I already wrote about.

First the one record I actually went to buy (or 'look at'), Death Grips - The Money Store.

 

I picked up Ex Military the 'experimental' Hip-Hop trio's debut recently and wrote about it in my Today Was A Good Day post, it's awesome and I needed to get the major label follow up as soon as possible.

 

 

I've only given it a couple of spins but I'm not as initially taken with it as the previous album, I'm not sure if it's because I know what I'm getting now and aren't as surprised by the disjointed madness of rapping, samples and electronic beats, or if this is slightly more watered down and less erratic. It's certainly missing something. Still that opinion will probably change on next listen.

Next I picked up Botch - An Anthology Of Dead Ends

Great album. I'd meant to pick this up previously but never got round to it. I actually thought I'd missed the boat or would have to pay over the odds as this was a Record Store Day release wasn't it? I think 750 were pressed in total but I'm not sure how many of those were on this clear vinyl.

 

I also spotted Doomriders - Black Thunder relatively cheap and as a band I like decided I finally needed to add some Doomriders vinyl to my shelf. This came out a fair while ago now but it's all good.

 

This is the second press of which they made four or five different colours and pressed 100 of each. This is the rather nice purple marble version.

 

Lastly, it seems to have been quite a while since I bought a record based purely on the record label alone, but I saw this 7" from From Ashes Rise and noticed it was on Southern Lord Records that released the Black Breath records amongst others and thought I'd take the gamble.

 

 

It's pretty much what I was expecting from Southern Lord, more doomy metal. It's not at all bad.

 

 

Uncle Acid

Man I like this record! I bought it on Saturday after going to a record store and amazingly they had it. I don't even think I'd normally bother with the 'U' section but I remembered I'd been meaning to check this out after hearing one track a while ago and Mike wrote about it recently too, so i checked and there it was. I've probably listened to it five times since Saturday.

I think if someone described this to me I'd say 'that doesn't sound like my kinda thing', I mean you can make all the Doom and Black Sabbath comparisons you want but this is basically 70's rock just a bit dirtier. I think it's the vocals and how it compliments the music so perfectly to make something totally hypnotic!

The first press and especially the super limited 'ultra die hard' edition have gone for mental money on eBay, which is made even crazier by the fact Rise Above are still pressing this. I got the solid green second press version limited to 500. I think that green actually works quite well, especially with the green sticker on the cover. The laminated cover looks awesome too.

Turnstile

When I started to get back into vinyl last year Turnstile - Pressure To Succeed was the record I bought that kinda triggered it. It wasn't just buying this record of course, I mean I'd been looking at vinyl again and thinking about buying them again but it was this release that I bought first because I'd downloaded it previously and loved it. I saw the blue vinyl first pressing one day and just thought 'yeah, I'm having that'.

One day a couple of weeks ago I looked at the Reaper Records webstore out of boredom as much as anything, when I noticed at the side of the page under top sellers 'Turnstile - Pressure To Succeed 7" Limited Cover 2nd Press'. Limited Cover? I'd only just bought the standard second press, what was all this about? Turns out Reaper ran out of covers, I presume for the last 132 copies of the second press (as that's how many of these there are), and pressed up the above green version of the sleeve.

 

This version just has a photocopied one side inner unlike the normal pressings. Here's a pic of the three pressings together. Would look a whole lot better if I had the pre-order cover version too.

 

Oh and props to Reaper for the speedy delivery they always manage. Considering I'm still waiting for a couple of things from U.S labels that were ordered months ago I really appreciate how quickly they get their stuff to me.

Will To Die

I picked this up recently whilst looking through an online distro because it said 'for fans of: backtrack,dtn, reign supreme, madball'. With that kind of influence I had to check it out as it sounded right up my alley.
To start with Will To Die don't really sound anything like those bands mentioned above and they certainly aren't as good as any of them, not that they are bad, they are OK but just do little to separate themselves from the host of bands out there within this kind of genre. They actually find their own feet a couple of times on this 7" especially when they speed up a bit but it's all too fleeting. The record suffers from some fairly muddy production too. So in conclusion it's an alright release but I can't see it getting many spins going forward, if any.
Limited to 200 copies with 5 different coloured sleeves each numbered out of 40.

Reign Supreme

I picked this up on eBay not long ago. Reign Supreme's American Violence 7". 

Good band that don't seem to get as much attention as some of their counterparts that play a similar type of metallic hardcore. It says limited colour on the front but this is actually the most common colour. 1000 on red.

Who can argue with a dude sporting a Pantera shirt on the centre label?

Heavy Breathing

I just can't stop listening to this band at the moment.
I talked about Black Breath's second album Sentenced To Life in my today was a good day post after it had been recommended to me by a couple of friends. I honestly didn't know what to expect other than I'd heard "It's a bit like Entombed". Well after the first spin of Sentenced To Life I thought it was bloody great. How had I not heard Black Breath sooner? Subsequent plays only went further to cement the fact that this was an excellent release.

Obviously this meant I now had to go find a copy of their debut album too, especially as I was now being told that this first album 'Heavy Breathing' was even better. Now that I liked the band though and wasn't just purchasing on a whim there is no way I was gonna be content with a normal black vinyl copy of Heavy Breathing. Luckily for me I'd bought a few things off a guy a few months ago and seemed to remember that on his list of sale items was Black Breath. Was it Heavy Breathing? Was it a non black vinyl copy? An email later and it was yes on both counts. Fuck yes!

Clear vinyl to be exact which given the ghostly image on the cover I think actually works quite well with this LP. I believe this was the European limited version of the release with the limited U.S version being blue. No idea of pressing numbers though. Both these Black Breath releases have great covers and packaging. Southern Lord have done a great job here. The whole thing just feels solid and quality.

Is this better than Sentenced to Life? Yeah probably. The second album is more of the same really and by that I mean quality heavy music, but I'd say Heavy Breathing is maybe slightly more consistent, there ain't a lot in it at all though, Black Breath have released two absolute scorchers. Think Entombed meets Converge meets Doomriders and your in the right kinda area.

Back In With The Out Crowd

A month or so ago I wrote about Out Crowd and their Reaper Records debut release 'Just Us'. I was impressed by it, especially as it was a band I knew next to nothing about, so when I was looking through the Anger Battery Records store and saw this I couldn't help but pick it up.

I believe this is a new release entitled 'Our Struggle' of the bands earlier 2011 demo and some other tracks from a split release. It's issued by Stomp Records.  The demo tracks as is probably to be expected suffer from some fairly tinny sounding production. It's interesting though and worth hearing the progression to the 'Just Us' release.

I like the art work on this, it's simple and reminds me of Backtracks art work which is a winner in my book.

NapalmVerge

Hot on the heels of last years split with Dropdead, Converge return with a similar joint offering, this time sharing a 7" release with Blightys very own noiseniks Napalm Death.

The cover art is as always done by Jacob Bannon and it actually looks way better than my picture is doing it justice here, black and a kind of copper colour, it's actually really striking and up close you can see every fine line of the art work.

On offer are two tracks from both bands. As you can probably imagine, neither band are reinventing themselves here, if you know these bands you know exactly what you are getting. Converge Offer a new track in 'No Light Escapes' (incorrectly written as No Lights Escapes) which smashes in at around 1 minute 30 and is Converge doing what Converge do frankly but it's a good track and whets my appetite for their new album. They also offer up a cover of Entombed 'Wolverine Blues', I'm pretty pleased about this as I like that track a lot and Converge do a good job of covering it.
Now I'm not the biggest Napalm Death fan in the world, I don't mind them and I've got a couple of their albums on my iTunes, but they've just never grabbed my attention particularly. However the second track on here 'No Impediment To Triumph(Bhopal)' is actually pretty damn good and actually has a bit of melody (well as much melody as Napalm Death are ever gonna offer up, I'm not talking pop punk), I like it.

It's not the first time I've found myself liking the Death actually, back in the late 90's I had a tape player alarm clock. Problem was I'd put music in it I liked and would always end up falling back asleep instead of getting my ass out of bed. My solution was to put a Napalm Death tape I had lying around in, with the thinking that this 'shit' would get me out of bed and reaching for the off button. And that worked for a day or two until I started to find myself actually liking the damn songs!! What a story.

Again as per last year Converge give us a 'Bong' vinyl colour, which I think basically means they've thrown a load of colours into a big pot and every record looks slightly different. This is green with some slight red in the mix.

Of course I couldn't just buy one 7" all the way from the U.S so I needed to add something else to my shopping cart. The slip mat on my turntable was pretty boring so i decided to spruce things up a little with this:

I just bought it on a whim really but I'm actually quite pleased with it.

Today Was A Good Day!

I had a great day yesterday, the sun was shining, I had an awesome lunch that included free cocktails and I did that rarest of all things these days, I went record store shopping!

It was to Nottingham and The Music Exchange that I headed. A few months ago I wrote about my Records Store Day 2012 experience here and it was this shop that I had visited then. At the time I said that I'd had to draw the line at some point and passed over a couple of records so that my wallet didn't take too much of a battering. Well imagine my surprise when I discovered that one of the records I left behind that day was still there waiting for me to return.

Endpoint - In A Time Of Hate

It's pretty old news now this record but ever since RSD I'd regretted not picking this up. Luckily for me though Nottingham hates hardcore music (completely untrue) and nobody else had the sense to buy this thing.

Number 155 of 500.

If truth be told the store had about 15 albums I would have been more than happy to pick up, something my wife was actively encouraging like a little devil on my shoulder, but next I picked up a couple of releases that had been recommended to me but I possibly wouldn't have been normally seeking out on the interwebs.

Black Breath - Sentenced To Life

Hah! look at this thing it's the most metal cover of the last twenty years surely? A friend of mine told me to check this band out as it was metal but with 'hardcore sensibilitys' but when I'd looked on line (briefly) I couldn't find it anywhere that wasn't sold out.

I haven't had chance to listen to it yet, but I'm hopeful it's gonna be cool.

Death Grips - Exmilitary

This had again been recommended to me and I had been told that this was a much better album and a better starting point than this rap trios follow up 'The Money Store'. I'd had a listen online and thought it was interesting.

Interesting is a bit of an under statement. This is straight up bonkers and challenging stuff. The only way I can describe Death Grips is to say it's like Wu-Tang Clan meets The Prodigy Meets Massive Attack meets Mr. Bungle and Black Flag interspersed with Charles Manson interviews. In fact Black Flags 'Rise Above' is sampled on this release. I actually really dig this from the listen I had last night, it's intense and probably has as much in common with techy noise core bands as it does with hip-hop.

The girl on the desk at The Music Exchange actually commented on both Black Breath and Death Grips, asking if I'd seen Black Breath in Nottingham recently and recommending another similar band who's name I've completely forgotten now and describing the Death Grips LP as an 'amazing album'. We had a chat about both and that's just something you don't get buying online, when you click on Checkout no one pops up saying 'great selections mate' or 'oh man you should really check out...'. There's definitely something brilliant about that experience.

Lastly I picked up this. Youth Of Today - Can't Close My Eyes

It was cheap and I wanted to add this to the other Youth Of Today Represses I got recently.

I believe this is the 2011 repress of the album.

After lunch I ventured to a second hand record store which tends to always have one or two great things in. I found two albums there too.

Suicidal Tendencies - Controlled By Hatred / Feel Like Shit..Deja Vu. This was super cheap and is in great condition so I added it to my Suicidal Tendencies collection (I say collection, I have three ST LP's)

Dub War - Dub Warning. I loved this band in the 90's. I recently bought their full album on Earache Records 'Pain', so was stoked to find this, their debut EP in mint condition and seemingly unplayed. Again it was super cheap.

So yeah, great day all round. On a side note I was in another slightly more mainstream record store (Fopp) where the staff told me that they were gonna be having a change around in the store soon that would include the entire length of the shop wall being for vinyl. It seems these record store trips might be more frequent soon.