Madball In Chains

Who doesn't love a little Madball? This guy right here loves a blast of the NY boys every now and again and whilst I don't think they've ever quite recaptured Set It Off or Demonstrating My Style they are still a good listen. I felt like they'd completely lost their way in the late 90's and early 2000's and didn't care that much for the stuff they released around that time, but these two more recent records I picked up I really rather like.

2010's Empire first:

 

Standard black vinyl but what is I believe the German version of the album on a nice looking gatefold sleeve.

 



I actually bought these records what seems like months ago now but I think a week or so later I also got a copy of this from eBay. Infiltrate The System:

I didn't even notice at the time that the cover is signed by Mackie from the band. Nice little touch though.

This is on grey with black splatter and looks great. This is again on a gatefold sleeve.

The same guy who was selling the signed Madball record was also selling a copy of Wisdom In Chains - Class War and as both were ending for cheap I thought I'd pick this up too. Remember I said I hadn't noticed that the Madball record was signed? This one is signed by the whole band and I didn't notice that either, I'm pretty observant like that. Looks cool enough though and again a nice little extra.

This is on a kind of 'cappuccino' coloured vinyl. Looks fairly good and suits the album artwork colours.

Eleven Random Records

I'm gonna take the easy way out and once again do a post with a load of random 7"s all together. There's just nothing remarkable about any of these to really warrant taking the time to do individual posts. Not to say they aren't decent records of course, but I've got other stuff to get posted up here that I'm more excited about.
It's all so random I actually don't know where to start. Let's kick off with two from Revelation Records.

Sick Of It All - S/T. The 1997 repress.

Texas Is The Reason - S/T. One of the better bands from that era of Rev releases for me.

Next some more recent Sick Of It All. Death To Tyrants on clear, with a nice little etched Alleyway Crew dragon on the front. I think clear was the most common pressing of this.

 

Off! - Compared To What b/w Rotten Apple. This is on some proper heavy duty vinyl.

 

 

On to two releases I got from Commitment Records UK. First I finally got round to checking out and buying Losin' It - Danger Zone that I saw Mario raving about on his blog.

 

 

Whilst picking that up I also bagged this compilation featuring bands like xCurraheex, Enough and Step Aside. Youth Crew 2012 from Positive and Focused Records. The centre labels pretty amusing. I don't know why i didn't pick up Provider - Wasteland whilst i was getting these as I've been meaning to buy it.

 

 

 So next on to 3 records I bought for 30p a piece...30p!! Can't even buy a chocolate bar for 30p these days, that's value folks!!!

Breaker Breaker - Demo

 

 

Blue Monday - What's Done Is Done 

 

The Damage Done - Never Wash Away on blue / 500.

 

And finally two old releases, one because I was talking to someone about this band but couldn't actually remember what they sounded like. Onion - S/T on Crisis

 

 

Billingsgate - Reach Out. What a weird looking band, I can only think these guys got together because they were the only guys who could play instruments in their town, I don't think I've ever seen a band so mismatched in the looks/style department. And don't get me started on the guy smoking a cigarette on the front. Weird.

 

 

Fresh Kills

I toyed with not buying this release because I'd already heard or had the tracks on it, and i'd already spent a fair amount on records that week. Then I remembered that this band rule so I slapped my self around the face and quickly headed over to Grave Mistake to order it.

This is Night Birds - Fresh Kills Vol.1 a collection of tracks from the bands 7" and Demo releases. All of this pressing is on black vinyl so I presume to add a limited addition/collectors version of the record Grave Mistake pressed 200 with this obi strip. I think by the time I came to order this, granted I think still on the first day, there were only a handful left.

 

The obi adds a little something I guess and looks decent against the black and white cover.

 

 

I really dig this band and could listen to this collection of songs as much as the awesome The Other Side Of Darkness LP they put out last year. They just don't really have a bad song.

 

 

 When I blogged about the TOSOD LP I mentioned that the centre label for some reason looked really good. Same can be said again here, the simple silver and black looks really good with the black vinyl (unlike my hand, I have a real problem taking pics of black vinyl).

I could do with adding the Killer Waves 7" to the collection but I haven't seen it anywhere for sale.

 



Beware of Reality

It seems like I've been waiting on these couple of orders from the other side of  the pond for ages, so I was pretty pleased when I got home tonight to see them both waiting for me. I'm pretty sure Mario tipped me off about both of these, hell of a dude!

Anyway the first order was from Back To Back Records and two great releases

Beware - Wont Get The Best Of Me

This is the second press on 'seafoam' green. Limited to 100 copies, my understanding is that these sold out pretty fast.

Face Reality - Strong Survive E.P

This is on a rather good looking solid Red vinyl.. I'm pretty sure when I ordered this it was supposed to be on Orange vinyl, but no way this is Orange, it's about as Red as you can get, maybe they changed it. Limited to 150 copies I believe.

My other order was from Youngblood Records

Face Reality - S/T

I'm not sure what pressing this is or pressing numbers but this Face Reality 7" is also on some good looking colour vinyl. Blue with a hint of marbling in this case.

Give - Flowerhead

 

When buying the Face Reality record I noticed this on the Youngblood site too. Great record and I hadn't previously had chance to add this orange/gold version of the records to my collection. 120 pressed.

 

Worthy addition to the Give collection anyway

 

I've jumped these to the top of my pile to blog about as I'd been waiting a while for them. I've fallen behind recently but the records have been coming in at a steady pace so I'm gonna aim to get another couple of posts done this weekend.

"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.