Calling The Coroner

When it comes to Metal records, there have been a few labels that I've entertained the idea of chasing...silver label Megaforce and green label Combat top that list. Now we can add the Noise Record label as well.

While I've always enjoyed the bands on the Noise roster, for one reason or another, I've just never been enticed to collect them...until I started reading Damn The Machine, the story of Noise Records. Suddenly, I found myself dusting off those old Running Wild and Kreator CDs, obsessing over Celtic Frost, and downloading stuff that I'd never heard like Hellhammer and Warrant. I couldn't get enough of those Noise bands.

As I was spinning a Noise playlist, and hunting for vinyl on discogs, I came across the original German pressing of Coroner's Punishment For Decadence record. Instead of the cover image of a skeleton playing the violin that I was familiar with, instead we get this twisted mass of bodies that was a piece of The Gates Of Hell sculpture. Having never seen this original cover before, I had an immediate need to get my hands on a copy.

Punishment For Decadence is an underrated classic. I didn't fully appreciate it at the time, when it was originally released in '88, but this album as certainly held up over the years, as I've been listening to it day after day during this Noise obsession.

I love inserts that list the labels catalog to that point, and I can review and dream of which one I want to add to the collection next.