Record Store Day 2

November the 23rd in the U.S is Black Friday and our lucky friends from across the pond have themselves a mini record store day with some exclusive releases issued. This year I got involved...sort of. This could be a long one...

So this little haul of vinyl started early Friday morning at 1am. I'd seen that Banquet Records has some of the Black Friday releases in and they would go on sale in the small hours. Luckily I'm something of a night owl and this sort of time doesn't put me off, so I waited up and swooped for the one record I was interested in. Incubus - S.C.I.E.N.C.E

See back in 1997 I LOVED this record and whilst I haven't been able to stomach anything the band has done since, I still think this is a superb album, so when I heard it was being pressed on vinyl for the first time I knew I wanted to get it.

Pressed as a double LP on gatefold the packaging is actually pretty poor. The images seem to have just been blown up from the CD inlay and theres a printing mistake in that some of the thanks list is printed twice. Obviously a rushed job as this seems to have gone unnoticed. I've since learnt that these Incubus albums are getting a standard press in 2013, had i of known this I'd have probably waited. The Black Friday version is limited to 3000 I think of which I have number 1918. It's good to listen to this album on vinyl and I still think it's an interesting listen but man the packaging let's it down.

 

Anyway, the reason I didn't mind staying up till 1am was that I wasn't going to work the next day anyway, me and the Mrs where in fact venturing to Birmingham for the weekend for a weekend of booze, food, fun and....records, yeah you know I had record store motives in mind for the trip.
I'd been meaning to visit Ignite Records for ages and just hadn't ventured to Birmingham in that time, so I was looking forward to it greatly.
On entering I was immediately greeted by the owner Rich who also runs Speedowax Records. Rich set about quickly figuring out what sort of stuff I was into so he could make some recommendations. In fact in talking to Rich it turned out he'd read this blog via Marcus' blog which was pretty cool.

This was the first thing I picked up from Rich. Hardside - Time Is Punishment. Rich noticed me look at it and said he'd put it on for me if I wanted. On listening to it in the store it sounded pretty good so I grabbed it.

 

Good brutal stuff on Green vinyl released by 6131 records. The cover is damn cool too.

 

 

I've spoken before about how in record stores rather than buying on the net I quite often buy records I wouldn't normally be seeking out because It's in front of me and I tend to get a little punch drunk in the store. So LP wise I next picked up this.

 

 

Machine Head - Burn My Eyes. Here's another album albeit in 1994 here that I used to love. Albums like this ushered in a new breed of metal back then and this album was and is a terrific slab of thrash infused ferocity.

 

Nothing this band has done since has interested me in the slightest, they might be back to being meeetttaaaaallllllll now but their band wagon jumping nu-metal and rap-metal days were repulsive to say the least. Tracks like Davidian and Old are still cool though. In fact in a similar vein Rich had a copy of Chaos AD by Sepultura that I wished I'd picked up now too.

So Rich being a true vinyl pusher of course didn't let me leave the store only picking up two LP's he also pushed some 7"s on to me from his own Speedowax label. Glad he did though.

Let me start with this, Black Shapes - In The Mourning Light. Sweet Jesus YESSS!! This band seriously rip, I like this record a hell of a lot. It's the new band of the singer from November Coming Fire and sounds like Converge meets Hot Damn era Every Time I Die with some Refused vocal moments in places. It's bloody good stuff this. Electric Blue vinyl. Not sure of pressing details. Check it out!

Next Collision - Tiebreaker. Melodic Hardcore here in the style of Saves The Day and bands of that ilk. I really like this too, good catchy hook and melodies with some great chants and singalongs. Rich gave me a two cover version, the cover on the left being the pre-order version. Also contains the two pressings of the record on yellow and black. This double pack is numbered 6/25.

Weight Of The World - No Promised Land. Again a double pack of records on thick purple and black vinyl. Numbered 18/25. This is good hardcore stuff in the style of Trapped Under Ice and Expire

 Next two Rich threw in for free.

 

A split release between Douglas and Deathbed. Two pretty different bands of course. Douglas are UK stalwarts and play pop-punk. Deathbed on the other hand are fierce straight edge hardcore from Atlanta. Good stuff.

 

Snake Road - Severed. Quite a weird one this, I'm totally unsure about this band. Screamy shouted vocals in the style of Snapcase or someone but the music is kinda riffy twiddly rock and roll.Not sure it quite hits home for me but I'll give it some more spins.

So that concluded my Ignite leg of the day, Great record store and Rich is a true gent. It's always good to speak even briefly to a kindred spirit and someone with a similar taste in music. I'll defo be back sooner rather than later I think.

Anyway on leaving Ignite we ventured into Birminghams big shopping centre The Bull Ring. As well as picking up Krispy Creme doughnuts I ventured for the first time in a LONG time into HMV just for the hell of it, and wouldn't you know, they only had a vinyl section!! When did this happen? I think purely from the shock I picked this up.

Helmet - Meantime. This is the 2012 Back On Black reissue.

Nice looking gatefold packaging on 180 gram red vinyl.

Did this album really come out in 1992? 20 years ago? Time flys

Turmoil

Sometimes I'll pick a record up just because it's cheap and it almost seems pointless not to pick it up. This is one of those and it cost me a ridiculous 99p.

Turmoil are a band I hadn't heard for years and couldn't completely remember what they sounded like, although I had a fair idea. I was right, there were no surprises at all when I spun this record their 1999 debut 'the process of'. I'm instantly transported back to those metallic hardcore bands of the late 90's. Earth Crisis, Snapcase etc etc. Look at the back picture basketball vests, bead choker necklaces, bandanas, bleach blonde highlights, sick of it all tattoos..love it.

I enjoyed this record more than I thought I would actually, it's not bad at all. This is the European release on Kingfisher. Black vinyl I'm afraid.

Finding My Peace

I've been lousy at posting up new stuff this month, I've just been so busy. But I have got plenty to post about so I reckon I'm gonna try and make a dent this weekend. Got some cool stuff to show including a 'Record Store Day part 2' story so stay tuned (or logged in as the case may be here).

Anyway, reaching for the first record near me...

Malfunction - Finding My Peace. I pre-ordered this what seems like quite a few months ago based purely on the fact it was out on Reaper Records and I'll pretty much buy anything that label puts out. It's not bad stuff, this band sound quite a lot like Expire I think, so I'm down with it.

I got the clear vinyl version limited to 200 copies. There is also a red version of 800 copies. I like that skull on the centre labels, although I'm not sure about the cover art work on the whole, i can't work out if I like it or if it's a bit cheesy. It's a bit different I suppose.

Solid relase as usual from Reaper though.

Four Scores

Four quick scores I've picked up recently -

Razor Cut - Combative Attitude. When I was picking up that Red, White & Blue Compilation recently I also picked up this based entirely on the cover. They just looked like they'd be a good band, I don't know why, I guess because they look a bit unconventional. Two chicks (who doesn't love chicks in bands?) a older looking dude and a young looking dude. I  was right too as this is pretty good catchy Oi/Punk.

This is the European version of the release which has a different cover to the U.S version and is stickered & hand numbered out of 250 with 100 black, 100 white and 50 splatter vinyl, sadly I just have the black version. I wouldn't mind picking up a U.S version of this now, I bet my man Mario knows where to look?!?

Next up a record I'm so late to the party with it isn't even funny.

No Tolerance - No Remorse, No Tolerance. Mario (hah another mention) managed to pick me up a copy of the blue version of this record a while ago so I knew I had to get a black version when I saw it as I'd been meaning to for a while but just hadn't got round to it. Hey, it happens sometimes right? there's a lot of records out there.

Anyway this is a cool record that I like alot. I could have got this wrong but this seems to be different to the other versions I've seen blogged about though as It's the black vinyl with the black and silver screen print cover, I'm sure all the others I've seen have the black and white cover with the black vinyl? Maybe I've got that wrong.

The next two are just a couple of cheap eBay buys.

Reign Supreme - Fuck The Weak. I've been meaning to get some more Reign Supreme after picking up the American Violence 7" so this is another welcome addition.

Green vinyl first press out of 800 I believe.

Righteous Jams - Boston Straight Edge

Up until getting this I didn't actually have any Righteous Jams on vinyl so this seemed like a decent place to start containing the bands 2003 demo.

Flipping it over I was pleasantly surprised to see that familiar Spoiler art on the back, I didn't know this was on there. Since then though I've seen a version of this that has a Spoiler cover too, would be nice to get one of them.

Standard black vinyl, no idea how many were pressed or even there were any other colours.

Madball Fear & Loathing

Only my third post of the month, what's going on?

I picked up this recently and must admit I don't know a huge amount about it. This is a split 7" release between Madball and Offset released and given away with Fear & Loathing fanzine in 1995. You'd be forgiven for thinking this only features Madball though as Offset are only mentioned on the loose insert.

Madball contribute Unity and Streets Of Hate to this release and interestingly they are different versions than what would appear on their Demonstrating My Style album a year later.
When I've seen this previously it's had a green cover but this one is red. I don't know if some were red and some green, hell this might be a bootleg of the original release I really have no idea. As you can see it's on purple vinyl with white labels. 1000 were pressed but that could just refer to the green cover version.

This is the insert that mentions Offset. The inner sleeve is also stamped with this 'M' logo that I don't know if I've ever seen before associated with Madball, it's an obvious play on the Madness logo anyway.

Getting Earache

There's no rhyme or reason to my record buying most of the time and I'm so far out of synch with the order I've bought stuff I might as well feature these records quickly even though I've bought loads of stuff I'm yet to write about here before these.

A couple of weeks ago I got an email from Earache Records saying they'd found some records in their warehouse they didn't know they had and they were all out of print and records they wouldn't be pressing again. You can guess what happened next right? Yeah I've clicked over there and checked out the unearthed gems. By the time I got there the heavy hitting super rare finds had been snapped up but a couple of things did catch my eye.

This is Lawnmowers Deth's 1993 album Billy. You know Lawnmower Deth right? crazy comedy metal and thats the end of the story. Well no actually. In '93 they released this album and it's got more in common with Green Day and the other american punk making it's way over here in the early to mid 90's. I remmeber hearing the album back then and thinking it was a dramatic change for the band. If they are taking the piss out of the genre then they do a bloody good job of it 'cos frankly this is a really decent slab of pop-punk.

So whilst adding Billy to my cart I HAD to look for something else too and this equally cheap little number jumped out at me.

Blood From The Soul - To Spite The Gland That Breeds also from 1993. The blurb underneath said that this was an industrial-metal album with Shane Embury from Napalm Death playing all the instruments. So what right? Well quite, but what caught my eye was the guy doing vocals on this - Lou Koller of Sick Of It All. I'd never heard of this but for the price figured it was a punt, especially as it wasn't in print anymore.
It sounds of course exactly how you'd imagine early 90's industrial type stuff to sound, drawing comparison to other bands of that ilk I haven't listened to in years Prong, Ministry, Misery Loves Company etc. It's not bad actually and whilst not really to my tastes exactly it's a decent listen and interesting to hear Lou singing on this kinda stuff.

Birds Going Confetti

I like Give alot, but I don't listen to them as much as I'd like to as their stuff is spread over like 5 different 7" records. So when I saw them all put together in one handy place on Marcus' blog I knew I had to pick the record up.

 

This is entitled Singles Going Confetti and was released for the bands world tour by Assault Records.

Pretty cool to have all the songs on one slab of wax and it also includes a bonus track exclusive to this release.

It's pressed on a good looking yellow vinyl and is limited to 160 on this colour with another 260 on black.

A side note and kind of a stupid point but the record also came in a plastic sleeve that I'd love to get more of for the rest of my collection. Good size, good thickness and some how seems to make the record look really good inside it, wonder where I can get more of these from?

Second record I'll feature in this post was another whim buy.

Birds In Row and their new album You, Me, & The Violence on Deathwish Records. I heard one track on this LP, the track Pilori and thought it sounded pretty good. So when I saw this in a UK distro I picked it up almost without hesitation (need records must buy, need records must buy).

I should have learnt my lesson with that Former Thieves record I spoke about a few posts ago though, as one track does not a record make. Don't get me wrong once again this is alright stuff it just hasn't really grabbed me at all. When this band rage they are pretty interesting but theres also alot of slower arty introspective moments that just don't do it for me at all here. I really don't know how much I'll listen to this, or maybe it needs more listens? I dunno.

Decent gate fold packaging on white vinyl. I'm not sure how many the white vinyl press is limited to although I believe there are three different colour ways.

I quite like the big poster included. I just heard a track off the new Code Orange Kids record that Deathwish is releasing next and I like it, something tells me I should listen to more of it before snapping that one up too though right?