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.

Let's Converge

I love Converge, their When Forever Comes Crashing and Jane Doe albums are completely responsible for getting me into that particular brand of noise and lead to me finding bands like Botch and Dillinger Escape Plan et al. Jane Doe is still one of my favourite albums and easily ranks in my top ten of all time. Now despite this I don't actually own Jane Doe on vinyl, simple reason is I was buying CD's when it came out and since getting back into vinyl I just haven't found a version of the album I want at a price I want to pay. I could easily buy the double black vinyl reissue that came out a while ago, but man, it just seems so boring for an album I love that much. Stupid way of thinking? Probably.

However I did pick these up a short time ago. First, 'No Heroes'.

This is my favourite of the post Jane Doe albums. This is the brown and clear second press of 1000.

I also picked up 'Axe To Fall'.

I have to admit I'm still not 100% sold on this album but then again it's probably the one I've listened to least of all so maybe I've just not delved into it enough. This is the solid light blue 1st pressing of 2000.

'No more heroes

No more

No more

In my world of enemies

I walk alone'

Insted

Seems me and Mario had the exact same idea recently, I'd say 'great minds think alike' but that would probably be an insult to Mario.

I decided that I needed some Insted vinyl, 'Bonds Of Friendship' has thus far eluded me but I did pick up these last week.



A first pressing of 'We'll Make a Difference' on black vinyl. I really like the colours and layout of this, it's simple but it just works!

And I also got a copy of 'What We Believe' dirt cheap off the Bay! I have no idea if any other colours of vinyl were issued but mines just a black vinyl version.

Try not to be too distracted by me taking the shot...man that photos awful. Does anyone know if this originally came with an insert? Feels like it should have one but there's not one with this.

London Calling

I'm up early (kids) and was watching some Olympic highlights. I have a staggering 25 channels of the games to choose from at the moment.  The title track from this album is used pretty heavily at the moment in conjunction (pretty strange as it's not exactly celebrating London) and as it played on the TV my eyes flicked to my records. As I picked this up reasonably recently and my last post was of a more punk rock nature I figured I'd feature it.

It doesn't really need an introduction but it's London Calling - The Clash -

I love this album, I always have and picked it up at a record fair a few months ago. Record Fairs in general I find are pretty poor for the kind of stuff I like but they are OK for picking up 'classics' at a decent price. There is a Fair maybe every 3 or 4 months about 5 minutes from my house so when it's on I always go on the off chance I'll find something decent...what else am I gonna do on a Sunday morning? It's where I tend to pick up older punk and metal stuff that I don't really feature on this 'ere blog but that I want on vinyl.

You can definitely tell vinyl has had a resurgence over the last few years, when I went to the fair let's say 3 years ago it was pretty sparse but the last occasion I went there was a queue maybe 75 deep to get in at opening. I wasn't particularly looking for this LP nor in any real hurry to add it to my collection. But the fact it was on red vinyl pretty much sold it's self to me as soon as I saw it. The one good thing about record fairs is you can haggle a bit and I managed to get £7 knocked off the price, so I was pretty happy.

You can't see in the photo really but the vinyl is a nice looking red with a slight marble.
'Rudie Can't Fail' is my favourite track on this. It's one of my favourite non hardcore songs of all time.

Normal service will resume next time I'm sure.

Harrington Saints

Quick post as I've just listened to this band again.

You know how it goes, you're buying a couple of things from a distro or label website and you just have to have a final look around to see if there is anything else you might have missed that takes your fancy. That's what happened with this. I was buying the In My Eyes re-presses but felt a bit unsatisfied because they were albums I already knew. Being on a bit of a punk rock kick at the time my eyes fell on this. Harrington Saints - Pride & Tradition.

I'd never heard the band before but noticed it was produced by Lars Frederiksen and I've always had a bit of a soft spot for Rancid. I love their first 4 maybe even 5 albums. If truth be told the Rancid and Lars and the Bastards sound/influence is their in spades, and when it's at it's most obvious the band do come across as a little bit of a poor mans version of the aforementioned. They do have some moments though when they sound like their own band that they are pretty good. It's pretty inoffensive catchy oi infused punk rock just right for the few warm afternoons we've had.
Anyway the cover of this thing looks awesome gold on black. Really stunning and striking.

The whole gate fold package is put together really well. It just looks great.

I was pleasantly surprised to find this is on white vinyl which I presume is the standard pressing.