Some Bridge Nine Aggression

From 2005 to 2008, Rivalry Records was one of the top labels in hardcore. It was the home of some of the biggest bands of that time...Verse, The First Step, Go It Alone, and Betrayed all released albums through Rivalry. In 2008, after the release of the last Verse LP, Aggression, the label quietly faded away. With Verse back together and recording a new album, Bridge Nine took the opportunity to make Aggression available again on vinyl.

To be honest, Aggression wasn't even close to being my favorite Verse album...Rebuild and From Anger And Rage completely destroy this record...still, it isn't a bad album by any stretch. Bridge Nine reissued this record a few months back, but I've been hesitant to spend the money on an album I already own...trust me, I know how stupid that sounds coming from me. Hell, Aggression already had Rebuild beat 2 to 1 in my record collection, so I should have been investing the money elsewhere.

What sold me on it was the colored vinyl. Bridge Nine chose a unique pattern for the vinyl pressing, and I couldn't resist the temptation to own one. The orange and white, fried egg style, was the best of the three pressings, so I went with that one. Maybe someday I'll take the leap and pick up the white/black and white/grey pressings as well.

What provided the push to finally order that Verse record was that Bridge Nine was promising a "free Have Heart 7 inch" for anyone that placed an order over the weekend. They hyped it as one of the Mystery Box 7 inches that wasn't going to be ready in time, so they were offering it as a bonus. I figured that the time was right to order the Verse LP, so I jumped on it...excited to see what it could be. A few live recordings? Some studio cover songs? How cool would it be to get their covers of Reinforced and More Than Music finally on vinyl? Could not wait to discover what the surprise was.

Fuck me. Just before the package arrived, reports started to trickle in that the whole thing was a joke, and a cheap one at that. I felt like a fool, and a laugh was being had at my expense. Yes, I go retarded for Have Heart vinyl, but for someone to play off that to bump up their sales for the weekend felt wrong to me. What was supposed to be funny, felt like a school yard bully prank. "Ha ha ha...we sure fooled those Have Heart record collector nerds". Maybe Chris Wrenn will consider me to be one of those "wet blankets"...maybe I'm too serious to fully appreciate the joke, but in the end it felt like the B9 messageboard took over the record label for the day. The label that I used to love, and try to collect every vinyl pressing a few years ago, lost a bit of integrity.

In the end though, I'm not going to piss and moan too much. I'm not really out anything. I bought a record that I would have bought regardless, and I got a free Have Heart ruler. No real reason to get upset, right? So why do I still have a bit of a bad taste in my mouth over the whole thing?