The Hope Conspiracy

The last couple of years has really opened my eyes to a number of older hardcore bands that I either straight up ignored, or didn't fully appreciate them at the time. Last year I picked up on some late 90's hardcore bands, and this year, thanks to Frostbite, I've been searching through my early 2000's playlist to see what I should spend more time with.

I was recently giving my CDs a quick look to test a new player that my wife picked up, and I saw the first EP from The Hope Conspiracy stuck in there. I thought it had been a long time since I'd listened to it, so I pulled it out for a test spin.

I haven't listened to these songs for about 15 years, and man, that has been a mistake. This kind of shit is exactly what I want to be listening to right now. So heavy... so angry. Lately it seems that most of these new discoveries for me aren't readily available for me to scoop the record on Discogs, and I'm stuck having to play the waiting game... so when I saw this grey vinyl option listed, I jumped on it.

I honestly haven't bothered with any of the Hope Conspiracy stuff beyond the Cold Blue album. Maybe this is the year for me to dive into that.

Dusted Angel

It's always cool to get a recommendation from a friend out of the blue, and even better when it's a good one that clicks right away.

Back in February, I was getting ready to step out the door to clear the driveway from the latest snowstorm, and I had a message from my old blogger friend Chris, asking if I'd heard Dusted Angel yet. I'd never heard the name before, but I put my earbuds in and queued up This Side Of Dirt, and headed out to shovel snow for an hour or so.

I suppose that Clifford Dinsmore from Bl'ast would be the big "ex-member of" draw here, but holy shit, this is so good. As soon as the first guitar riff from Plastic People started to penetrate my ears, I had the biggest smile on my face, and didn't care that I was outside in freezing temperatures moving snow that was already a foot deep. Blending stoner rock, doom and an undercurrent of punk, I loved what I heard and immediately ordered a copy.

This red, yellow and purple blended colored vinyl is limited to only 100.

Psalms Of Brat

Last year I discovered Disembodied, and very quickly became obsessed with the band. I'd ignored them back in the 90's, but on a whim I decided to check them out last year and it was exactly what I needed. Both If God Only Knew and Psalms Of Sheol immediately took over my life, and Disembodied were easly my favorite discovery that year. That obsession hasn't let up in 2026. I started listening to their Diablerie album earlier this year, and I've been desperate to get my hands on the white vinyl version for it... and then along came the Psalms Of Sheol reissue which I apparently needed as well.

I have a few friends that really like Charli XCX, and for a time in 2024 our group chat was full of comments on her new album at the time, Brat. While I was able to enjoy stuff like Lana Del Rey and Lorde, I never really had that same kind of attraction to Charli XCX... well her song Guess was a lot of fun, but I didn't really spend any time with Brat.

While I was still riding my Disembodied obsession, Marcus sent me a message about a new pressing for the Psalms Of Sheol, and the test pressing that pays tribute to Brat. I immediately wanted it. The Brat design is iconic and since Disembodied have done a few of these kinds of rip off sleeves in the past, it was a great choice here... and personally, owning it felt like a good tribute to my Brat friends that know nothing about Disembodied.

After Marcus let me know that this test press existed, I just kept thinking about how nice it would be to own one... and since the label didn't seem to be announcing anything about selling them, I finally just sent Prime Directive an email asking about it. To my surprise, the guy wrote me right back and said that he would check to see if he had an extra. A week later he got back to me, letting me know that he did have one and he gave me a price. Without hesitation I sent the money. I have no idea how many were made of this test, but I am so grateful that I had the opportunity to own one.

I'm not sure if I would have ended up buying the Psalms of Sheol reissue, but since I owned the test press, it felt like a logical move.

The new cover design for the reissue looks cool, and it was only available on this splatter colored vinyl... which at least matches well. 200 pressed.

Things snowballed from there, and since I was buying the new reissue for the LP, it only made sense for me to pick up an original pressing off Discogs.

Three copies of Psalms Of Sheol picked up within a three week span, and there are still other versions that I would have grabbed if they were available.

Orange vinyl was limited to 333.

The Purple Dawn

I never really paid too much attention to The Suicide File back in the mid 2000's. Those were weird times for me with hardcore and I was pretty disconnected from what was happening... so The Suicide File was one in a long list of bands that I never spent much time with. A few years ago I really sat up and started paying attention to some of those bands, and had a stretch where I was obsessed and spinning The Suicide File on repeat. I was looking for colored vinyl from the band, but for one reason or another it was proving more difficult that I expected and I ended up empty handed.

After adding some records to my cart over on Discogs, I started to browse to see if the seller had anything else that caught my eye. As soon as I saw this Suicide File 7 inch, I was excited to finally grab this. I still haven't bothered with the full length album, but these early songs from The Suicide File are so fucking good. One of the best records from 2002.

380 pressed on purple vinyl.

RTA LI

When record labels started pressing stupid amounts of colored vinyl options... frustrating me to the point of giving up collecting multiple versions... Rule Them All were one of the bands that snapped me out of that mindset and had me chasing multiple copies again. I loved the band that much and it brought that collector spirit back a little bit.

With their first 12 inch, An Alignment Of Polarity, I didn't think that I'd make much progress on that collection. The record was only pressed on black vinyl, but it did see a couple of limited covers made in small numbers, so I figured that my chances were small in getting my hands on them.

Last year I was surprised to have the opportunity to pick up the Silent Majority ripoff cover from a Discogs seller, and as I was writing the blog post back in January, I decided to see if anything else had popped up there. I was happy to find someone looking to sell the limited Long Island map cover, and I quickly added it to my cart.

Discogs doesn't have much info on this one... it just lists it as "300 copies pressed", so I was happy to find that it was numbered out of 50. I wonder if I'll have any luck finding a test press for this one and completing the collection.

90 MPH Ordination

I love that 90's hardcore/emo shit so much. I know that my love for 90's hardcore punk covers a lot of ground, but let me live in that sweet spot of Ebullition style with bands like Mohinder, Plunger, Moss Icon and Shotmaker because that style never gets old for me. That sound seems to only live in that timeframe, and I don't know if it could successfully be replicated today. Prove me wrong... please. But one of the bands that I loved from the mid-90's time period was Ordination Of Aaron.

Ordination Of Aaron came out strong around 1994 with a 7 inch, a split with Indian Summer, and some amazing songs that ended up on a few compilations, and I loved that shit so much. For one reason or another I wasn't able to pick up their LP, Immersion In A 90 MPH World, when it was released the following year. By the time 1996 rolled around and I picked up the discography CD, and I heard those LP songs for the first time, I was disappointed. They didn't really move me like I'd hoped they would... plus the youth crew revival was starting to take off at the time, and so I didn't spend much time with those songs and I quickly moved on to chase high fives and stage dives.

At some point last year, I decided to revisit the songs from that Ordination Of Aaron album (it was the 30th year of its release after all, so I was motivated) and I was surprised with how much I loved what I heard. Damn. This is that classic 90's emo stuff that I love. I had those songs on repeat, and early into 2026 when a US seller finally had a copy of the record available, I jumped on it.

Bitter Animals

I'm continually surprised with how many records Tim Singer is turning out these days. Between the new No Escape a few years ago, a new Deadguy album last year, and Bitter Branches... it seems like there is always something new from that guy.

Still, I was shocked to see preorders go up for a new Bitter Branches record from Equal Vision this year. Your Neighbors Are Failures was one of my favorite new releases back in 2022... it surprised me with how good it was... so yeah, I jumped on the preorder for their newest, Let's Give The Land Back To The Animals.

This new Bitter Branches record hits just as hard as the last one. There is so much rage in the delivery of these songs that it feels like it could boil over at any second... and this fits my mood lately, so I've been spinning this record a lot. "But I'm the weird one. I'm obscene. Why are you not screaming?"

Great gatefold packaging. 150 pressed on clear and red ripple colored vinyl.