Insist On Orange

There was a time when I was buying multiple copies of every new record. The strain of trying to keep up with that race became overwhelming, and I jumped ship...choosing to only keep playing that game with my most favorite of record labels. These days, I struggle to even keep up the fight on that front as well.

I'll admit it, over the past couple of years, I've struggled to stay excited over new Hardcore bands. Sure there have been some great records, but my fire was starting to fade when it came to checking out every new band. With some recent releases from Triple B, my interest came back pretty hard, and suddenly, I was chasing all kinds of newer bands.

I'd initially ignored the preorders for the latest REACT! release, but since I was chasing all kinds of new bands, the Insist record was put on that list. After a quick Bandcamp preview of what was being offered here, I knew it was another record that I had to pick up. Sounding like a cross between The First Step and Mindset, I was kicking myself for not jumping on this sooner.

Because I had my head up my ass, I missed the more limited clear vinyl pressing. Since that one was sold out, and I couldn't order the entire first pressing, I decided to go simple and just grab the orange vinyl, which was limited to 300.

Solid record!

Lies Of Liberty '87

Mos Generator have always been a bit hard to stick into a specific genre. Their mix of Stoner/Doom/Rock makes it difficult to describe their sound. With their latest release, Lies Of Liberty, the waters get even more muddy.

Back in the mid 80's, before Mos Generator was even a twinkle in Tony Reed's eye, and he was still an angry young punk, he had band named Lies Of Liberty. The songs never received a proper recording at the time, so in 2016 Tony Reed pulled the Mos Generator guys together to have a bit of fun and put them to tape.

Old dudes playing punk songs from their youth. I'll back that.

This record is a blast. Eleven songs in eighteen minutes.

Sunshine Seems Important

Back in 2009/2010, when I was at the height of my record collecting frenzy, and buying multiple copies of just about every new release, one my go-to record labels was Just Another Day. The label specialized in multiple colored vinyl pressings, and at the time I had a mindset of "more is better", so I was loving the insanity of it.

The label eventually closed up shop, and then changed hands with Rune taking over and then changing the name to Never Back Down Records.

I wasn't really interested in the first Never Back Down release, and when the label started talking about their second record, an album from a band named Molly, I thought that I might be skipping this one as well. With the label making comparisons to Husker Du and Dinosaur Jr, I felt like this Molly record would hold zero interest for me. Still, I was listening to a bunch of new music at the time, and decided that it couldn't hurt to just give a song or two a quick listen to verify that I didn't like it as much as I expected.

Much to my surprise, I found myself kind of digging the first song that I checked out. There was something about that song that kept tugging at my brain, and asking me to check it out again...and again. I wasn't sure how much I was going to really enjoy the record, but I knew that I needed to buy myself a copy and dig in deeper.

This record is a flashback to '91/'92 when I was listening to a lot of R.E.M. and Nirvana, and I can definitely hear those influences here. While I would expect this kind of thing to irritate the shit out of me, strangely enough, I find myself drawn to this record.

Number 17 out of 108 pressed on the blue/clear split for preorders.

The State I'm In

My biggest surprise from last year was the new Rough Kids album. I'd never heard of the band before, but they came along at the right time, and fit that late 70's punk sound that I was obsessing over at the time.

That Rough Kids album went all the way to number one on my Best of 2016 list. I loved that record, but held back from rushing out to scoop up their 2013 debut album, The State I'm In. I wanted to fully soak in that new record, and didn't want to somehow dilute that by adding their first album into the mix too soon. So I waited it out a full year, before I decided the time was right to finally check out that first Rough Kids album.

The State I'm In fits that same '77 Punk sound, at times reminding me of the first album from The Adverts. How is it that a newer band can play a style of Punk that is 40 years old, and still have it sound fresh and vital?

Metal Church Live

Hands down, one of my favorite concerts last year was when Metal Church played a small club in Portland. Mike Howe's reunion with the band, had me obsessing over the three albums they did with him back in the late 80's/early 90's. I was listening to those albums like crazy and could not get enough...and on top of that, their newest record was impressive as hell. Having never seen Metal Church live before, I couldn't have been more stoked to see them when they came through town. A smile was permanently fixed on my face as I watched the band tear through some new tunes and a bunch of older classics.

I'm usually not too interested in live albums, but having such great memories of seeing Metal Church last year, I couldn't resist picking up their latest live release as a nice reminder of the show.

As the Classic Live title alludes to, none of the songs from their newest album are included here...only material from the bands original run...and with those last couple of Mike Howe albums feeling a bit under appreciated, it is nice to see songs like Gods Of A Second Chance and No Friend Of Mine falling under that "classic" umbrella. Solid fucking track list.

Only 300 pressed on vinyl, and only available through the band's website.

Virtual Maiden

All the cool kids like to look down their nose at Iron Maiden's Blaze Bayley years. I get it, after years of Bruce Dickinson's voice behind the mic, Blaze can be a bit jarring. Hell, it took me a number of years to come around to it, but these days, I'm on the Maiden train from start to finish. I love those oddball Blaze albums, and while I recognize they don't measure up when compared to anything else from the Maiden catalog, I probably still reach for them as much as anything else.

As much as I enjoy X Factor and Virtual XI, it was tough call to include the original vinyl pressing on my Want List. Trying to collect mid to late 90's Metal vinyl could break the strongest of record collectors. Vinyl was damn near extinct at the time, and if you want to chase anything from that era, you better be bringing stacks of cash...for a popular band like Iron Maiden, you better bring double.

The original 1995 pressing of X Factor was a bit steep, but it was manageable for me, but when it came to Virtual XI, with an average price of $300, things got a bit more serious. Earlier this year, I finally said "Fuck it", and I decided to step up and show that I was a serious player in the Maiden game. I had the record on my Top 10 Wants for 2017 list, I was getting ready to make a move and check it off...and then Iron Maiden announced that they were even repressing every album from 1990's No Prayer For The Dying through their latest picture disc release 2012's En Vivo. Unbelievably, Maiden were repressing the Blaze Bayley albums.

This put my thoughts into a spin. Did I save loads of money and go for the repress, or did I stick to my guns with the original press? I tossed the question around in my head over and over again. Taking the cheap way out felt dirty, but in the end $300 is a ridiculous amount of money to ask for what may be the weakest release in the Maiden catalog, so I put the money back in my wallet for another day, and I took the reissue for $30.

Nightmare Shovell

I've got a weird relationship with Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovell. With each record they release, I check out the latest music video, I absolutely love it...then I rush to buy the vinyl, which I give a few spins, and then I put it on the shelf and there it sits, pretty much ignored. I get all excited about it initially, and then it quickly becomes something I push to the side.

...and yet, I keep running to buy the latest Shovell release. Go figure.

When the new video for the latest single was released, I figured that I'd check it out. Videos from the Shovell, never fail to entertain, and with the one for Nightmare full of photos of naked girls from old magazines, it does not disappoint. The song itself is okay, but doesn't really grab me by the throat and command my attention...and the same goes for the b-side In A Damaged Brain. Good enough, I guess, but I don't know how often I'll be spinning this thing.

Only 100 pressed on black vinyl.

Number Of The Beast

Last year, Beastmaker released their Doom debut, Lusus Naturae. For me, they seemed to come out nowhere, and that album was a great surprise. When Rise Above announced pre-orders for the band's follow up album, Inside The Skull, I was shocked. Two albums over two years? I didn't know that bands could still put albums out at this frequency.

One of the things that first attracted me to Beastmaker was the cover art for their first album. With Inside The Skull, the album artwork is still really cool looking, and the entire packaging really captures the feel and sound of the band.

Beastmaker know their Doom influences, and wear them proudly on their sleeve. Videos for Evil One and Nature Of The Damned show the band enveloped in the horror doom imagery, and pounding out the songs.

Die Hard pressing limited to 100 copies on black vinyl, and includes a giant poster featuring Fangoria artist, Kelly Forbes.

Black And Blue God

Black God rolled out a few 7 inch records from 2011 to 2013, and I could not get enough of them. They really hooked me at the time, and even sucked me into buying multiple copies of each one. Then after that initial burst of activity, the band went silent. Almost four years later, Black God come out of nowhere, and drop another 7 inch.

With their latest 7 inch, 4our, Black God stick with the formula they perfected through their first three records. They carry a strong 90's Hardcore sound, and still come across as totally unique in today's Hardcore scene.

100 pressed on opaque blue vinyl.

The first three Black God records have a set of rules etched into the dead wax, and I was looking forward to see what commandments they would lay forth this time around. Rule #7 and #8 were new for this record, but I'll post the full set here for the hell of it.

Rule #1: No song over two minutes

Rule #2: No record over six songs

Rule #3: No record larger than seven inches

Rule #4: No cover songs

Rule #5: No splits

Rule #6: No stress

Rule #7: No Idea

Rule #8: Break Rule #1

Hit And Red

At the end of 2015, I picked up a copy of Decibel Magazine that counted down the top 100 old school metal albums. I love a good list, and had a great time reading about their Top 100. I'm a huge metalhead, so I knew most of the albums listed, but there were still a few surprises from records that I'd never heard before.

One of these surprises was Girlschool.

Of course I was familiar with the band name...having recorded the St. Valentines Day Massacre split with Motorhead kind of makes it hard to have never heard of Girlschool before...still, outside of their songs with Motorhead, I never bothered.

I was determined to listen to every album on Decibel's Top 100, and with Girlschool's second album, Hit and Run, charting at number 68, I grabbed a sneaky download, and threw it into the mix.

Much to my surprise, I loved it. Their punked up kind of rock n roll, hit all the right buttons, and I found myself listening to those songs daily.

For me, there is something really cool about colored vinyl in the 70's and early 80's. Black vinyl was king at the time, as opposed to today, where every album gets 10 different colored vinyl options...so grabbing colored vinyl from those early days seems special to me. When I discovered that there was a red vinyl pressing of Hit and Run, I had to grab one.

No Place For European Disgrace

Recently, there was a post on the Braveboard, asking what your two favorite songs were off of Flotsam & Jetsam's No Place For Disgrace album. The first song to come to mind was I Live You Die, but after that, I was at a loss as to what song number two might be. The only way to find the answer was to give the album a spin.

I love this album, but I only owned my original CD pressing that I bought back when I was 17 or 18 years old. When I started checking discogs for what it may cost me to finally add the vinyl to my collection, I noticed that the cover for the European pressing looked slightly different from the US version. This was all it took for me to go from a casual "I'd like to own this album on vinyl" to an immediate "I need this right fucking now".

Sometimes it is the little differences, and after years of being familiar with the blue cover for No Place For Disgrace, owning the red and black cover was something fresh, and just seemed cool.

This album is a straight up Thrash classic, and can easily stand toe to toe with some of the other heavy hitters that were released in 1988.

Oh...and for the record, the second song that I chose as my favorite would be the title track, No Place For Disgrace. Hari Kari!