Metal Church Rights

When Metal Church pulled in another singer after Mike Howe's death in 2021, I was a bit hesitant. I loved Mike Howe and wasn't sure that I cared enough to follow the band without him, but surprisingly, I found that Metal Church still sounded great and so I picked up their new record in 2023. Then when I heard that Metal Church was bringing in another new singer for their 2026 release, Dead To Rights, I rolled my eyes. Between the revolving door of musicians and my struggle to find interest in new metal this year, I figured that I'd be keeping my distance on the new Metal Church record.

After picking up the new Armored Saint album this summer, I found that it lit a little spark within me for new metal. Harnessing that excitement, I figured that I'd give the new Metal Church record a chance.

I checked one of the newer songs and I was surprised with how much I enjoyed it. It was cool to have Dave Ellefson from Megadeth playing bass here, and the new guy on the mic fucking rips... sounding very reminicent of David Wayne. I loved what I was hearing and obviously needed to order the vinyl.

I know that I haven't been paying any attention to new metal releases, but Dead To Rights is easily the most exciting this year. It is such a good thrash record... from start to finish I'm banging my head. It gives me exactly what I want and pulls me out of my other music obsessions sounding fresh and exciting.

I grabbed the red and black swirl from Rat Pak with the autographed album cover art insert. That vinyl looks great!

Drinking Deep In Reverse

From the ashes of Remission, Philippe Armana started up his new band Drink Deep. I loved the bands demo and the DD 7 inch from 2023. I somehow missed their Burning House 7 inch last year and still need to circle back and pick that up, but when I saw that preorders were up for a new EP from Thirty Something Records, I didn't hesitate and jumped in to order both versions of colored vinyl.

The first Drink Deep 7 inch was perfect... eight songs, and each one clocking in around a minute... and while In Reverse is still a really good hardcore record, things stretch out a bit here with songs leaning more to the two minute mark. Musically, it feels like the early stuff was "Can I Say" and this record is more "Wig Out At Denko's" (especially on the back half of the EP).

Anyway, I really like this record and don't regret the impulse buy of both colored vinyl versions.

100 on pink and 200 on purple. Nice looking colors!

Don't Know Shit

At some point in my mid 2000's hardcore obsession that kicked off when I finally discovered Frostbite, I came across Let Down. I remember hearing good things about this band back in the day, and had picked up their We're In This Alone CD at the time... and it fell flat for me. I didn't understand the hype, and didn't bother with anything else from Let Down.

Over the summer, I was picking up a record from a Discogs seller and decided to see if they had anything else that caught my eye. I saw they had an early 7 inch from Let Down and wondered if that would land better with me over their album. I did a quick download of the songs, and immediately knew that I'd fucked up by waiting so long to check this out. Easy decision to grab this for $6.

Four songs in five minutes. Pure pissed off fast hardcore like god intended mid 2000's hardcore be played. This red vinyl copy with the red eye on the cover looks great.

Because this Let Down 7 inch was released by Dead By 23 Records, and there are 21 different versions listed on Discogs, I wanted more than just the one copy. I started looking around and found this clear vinyl copy for $10 so I grabbed it. Tempting to chase more of these.

The cover here is actually a dark blue, and looks that way in my photo... but when I load it up to blogger here it looks purple.

Big Squint

I first heard of Squint back in 2022, when they released their Feel It EP. I'm pretty sure that I got the tip from No Echo on the band... back when I was paying attention to this kind of thing. I really liked what I'd heard from Squint, but at the time it was only a digital and cassette release, and without the physical vinyl, I forgot to keep up with them. I lost track of the band over the years, but after picking up the Square One / Turn Of Phrase split 7 inch earlier this year, I noticed that Squint had a record available in the Sunday Drive Records store, and I was prompted to revisit them and see what they'd been up to.

It looks like Squint have a new album out this year, but the cover for their 2024 album, Big Hand, caught my eye and figured that I'd jump in there first. Also, I really liked the look of the split clear and pink vinyl, and while it was sold out in the webstore, I figured that I'd grab it if there was one for cheap on Discogs. Score. Got one for much less than the label sold them for.

This is a really good record. I can't come up with any direct comparisons, but I like the rough, yet still melodic, style they are doing here. Musically at times they remind me of Drug Church, and I'm digging it.

One Harvest Closer

Last year I rediscovered Harvest, and quickly became obsessed with everything that the band did. I bought every Harvest record that I could get my hands on... and unfortunately that ended up being one single 7 inch. Goddamn. Why was it so difficult to find records from these 90's hardcore bands that I was just discovering and falling in love with? The world is cruel.

Back in July, I got a tip from Marcus that Wanna Hear It Records had the grey vinyl version of Harvest's One Step Closer Than The Last 7 inch available in their online webstore. We both thought the price was little high, but after talking it over for a couple of minutes I decided it was worth pulling the trigger now instead of waiting another year for one to pop up for sale and possibly save $10. Fuck it. I love this band too much to fuck around over price... just get into my collection.

These four songs are so good, and I'm glad that I grabbed this. Now someone just needs to let go of their orange version of this 7 inch so I can get my hands on that too.

November Is Coming

When Jeff first acquired Tim's collection two years ago, and was going to sell off large portions of it, I remember him telling me that Samhain's November Coming Fire was in there. At the time, Jeff wasn't sure if he wanted to keep that one for his own record collection, but I was hoping that he would decide to sell it off so that I could jump in and spend a lot of money on it. As luck would have it, Jeff preferred money over vinyl, and very quickly I was handing over the most money that I'd spend on a record this year.

Unlike a lot of records these days, the Samhain stuff has never gotten caught up in the endless stream of reissues. In face, it hasn't seen an official reissue since the early 90's... so yeah, getting your hands on one is gonna cost some money. It has felt like it's been a while since I've made a very big record purchase, and with November Coming Fire sitting there in front of me... and in such great condition... I knew that I had to have it.

I like Samhain, but honestly, I've never spent much time with them. I owned the Initium CD and November Coming Fire on cassette, but they always fell in that odd place between Misfits and Danzig, and I prefered both of those bands as a kid, so that's where I focused my time. Samhain always was pushed to the side as the less interesting option... even recently, I seem to only queue them up for a quick spin every other year. But still, they feel like an important band, and maybe a bit overlooked... although that could just be me, or the fact that their stuff isn't available for streaming. So I still wanted this damn record... and I've got to say, I'm so happy to have picked this up. I've been having a blast revisiting it this month. So many great songs here. I didn't realize this record was this good!

Demonitization Relapse

It's been 8 years since the last Iron Reagan record... well, 7 years if you count the one song from their split 7 inch with Sacred Reich. Members are involved with a number of different bands, and with as much time that had passed, I wouldn't have been surprised if Iron Reagan had quietly closed up shop. So I was very excited when I saw that they had a new EP on the way this year.

When I discovered back in June that there was a new Iron Reagan record on the way with Demonitization, I immediately started looking to get my preorder in. Before I checked out of the webstore over at Relapse, I realized where the hell I was, and I hit the brakes. In my excitement for a new Iron Reagan record, I almost forgot that Relapse does a clear colored vinyl version of all their releases (Not available to the public - Friends of band and label only)... and that's the one that I wanted. I played the waiting game and a couple of weeks ago I finally noticed one of my regular clear Relapse connections on Discogs had one availble for sale, and I quickly added it to the cart and checked out.

Iron Reagan do what they do and deliver what you expect from them. They aren't going to spring any surprises on you, and will just hit you with quick blasts of crossover hardcore punk... keeping it fast and tight with 6 songs coming in around 10 minutes. Going for the throat and not letting go as Iron Reagan do best.