Freezing Haunt

I was late picking up the new Haunt album last year, and when I was scrambling at the end of 2019 to catch up on what I'd missed, the colored vinyl options were sold out and I settled on the common black vinyl pressing. Shortly after picking up that 2019 release, If Icarus Could Fly, preorders were up for the lasted Haunt album, Mind Freeze...and not wanting to miss out on the colored vinyl, I quickly ordered.

Both colored vinyl options looked amazing with the cover for Mind Freeze, but I went with the "frozen pinwheel" option. Once again, the packaging from Shadow Kingdom Records is top notch.

Haunt play a traditional heavy metal style, and have to be one of the most productive bands around. This record is my first 2020 release that I've picked up, and I'm sure we will see another EP or something from them before the year is out.

Savage Master Of The Flames

Savage Master have quickly become my newest obsession. I was a bit late in checking them out, and didn't really start listening to their new album, Myth, Magic & Steel, until the last week of December. If I'd been paying attention sooner, there is no doubt that their new record would have shot to the top of my Top 10 list for the year. In one month, I probably listened to that album more than any other 2019 metal release for the past year. I haven't been able to get enough Savage Master, so I quickly started checking out some more of their back catalog.

The Creature Of The Flames EP was released back in 2017, and when I saw that Shadow Kingdom Records still had it available in their store, I quickly grabbed one. Good thing I moved on it when I did because they are now sold out of it.

This 12 inch EP contains four Savage Master songs, plus a cover of Death & Glory from the old NWOBHM band Holocaust. Holy shit. I fucking love these songs. For some odd reason this EP isn't on Spotify, so I haven't been able to listen to it while at work, but I've been making sure to spin the vinyl a lot when I get home.

450 pressed on this "transparent beer" colored vinyl.

While on my Savage Master spree, I also found a US seller that had the Black Hooves single available at a fair price.

Originally released back in 2015 as a single for the With Whips And Chains album, featuring Black Hooves on the a side, with the b side containing a cover of Riot's Swords and Tequila. This band can do no wrong with me at this point.

300 pressed on orange vinyl.

Combat Frost

I'd spent a lot of time and money with a bunch of newer releases the past couple of months, and it felt like it had been a while since I'd bothered chasing a big target classic record. New releases are cool and fun to pick up, but man, there is no thrill like buying a record that is over 30 years old.

I've got Emperor's Return from Celtic Frost on my Top Wants list for this year, and that's the one that I should have been targeting, but when I saw the green Combat Records labels for To Mega Therion, I couldn't walk away. They don't show up on Discogs very often, and when one popped up where the seller wasn't asking a ridiculous price for it, I fired off a quick message to ask if he could email me a few photos...mostly because I wanted to confirm it didn't have the Combat camo labels, but I also wanted to make sure it was in good condition. Everything worked out, and I quickly added it to my cart.

From the H.R. Giger artwork, to the insanely heavy songs within, this album absolutely crushes. A definite classic, and one that I'm happy to finally own.

Vantage Point Record Release

Back in December I took a trip to Boston for one of the Triple B America's Hardcore shows. I can't express enough how much fun I had checking out a bunch of newer hardcore bands at that show. I've been going to hardcore shows for 30 years, and it was just one of those experiences that made me appreciate that kids are still doing this kind of shit. I had really been out of the loop when it came to going to hardcore shows for the past few years, but when I left the AHC show, I committed to myself that I was going to get out to check out more shows in 2020.

When I saw that Vantage Point were having a record release show for their new 7 inch in January, I circled the date on my calendar. I really liked their new record, and the line up for the show was solid, so I made the two and a half hour drive by myself to check it out. This was going to be a big deal, because the show was at the Hardcore Stadium in Cambridge, and I hate driving and finding a place to park in this area so fucking much, that I'd avoided every show that took place here in the past.

I was really excited to get to the show early and make sure I grabbed a copy of the record release version for the new Vantage Point 7 inch. Limited to 30, and some really great packaging with the screened cover and OBI style strip. Very well done, and I was extremely happy to be first in line to grab one.

The show itself was a blast. Every band were a lot of fun to watch, and I really wished that I was more familiar with all of them so that I could bang around down front and sing along.

So Moved

Last year I picked up the Hammered Hulls 7 inch, and quite enjoyed it. With Alec MacKaye on vocals the comparisons to his classic bands from the 80's was inevitable, and it got me reaching for those older albums...until I realized that I didn't own a single Ignition record.

I love the Ignition stuff, so I jumped on Discogs to see what damage I could do, and surprisingly I was able to pick up the Machination album for only $11. I guess that if you aren't buying from the early Dischord catalog, you'll find that prices are reasonable. Might have to make a move to pick up The Orafying Mysticle Of... soon as well.

I was late to the Ignition party, and didn't bother checking them out until the mid-90's, after Dischord released that Complete Services CD with all of the band's songs. Happy to finally have some of the vinyl in my collection.

Includes a nice big fold out lyric sheet poster.

Cry Of The Priest

I've never really thought about becoming a collector for Judas Priest. I mean, yeah, I wanted all their studio albums on vinyl, but I had never obsessed over them from a collectability standpoint like I do with Iron Maiden and anything Dio related. That all changed when I started checking out what they had released for singles over the years. Those singles looked fucking amazing, and suddenly I was itching to start throwing money at them.

If I was going to make serious run at collecting Priest records, I might has well start with a couple of recent releases that I had previously ignored. First up was the Turbo 30 album from 2017 that I scooped up earlier this year, and next on the list was the double live album, Battle Cry.

Judas Priest had two live albums in their catalog with Unleashed In The East and Priest...Live!, and I didn't think that we needed another live album, so I never bothered with Battle Cry at the time. Checking it out now, I feel like an idiot for ignoring it for this long. The track list on this thing is great. With three songs from the Redeemer Of Souls album, plus songs like Devil's Child and Jawbreaker, this is a cool live album to spin. I'm really digging this, and it makes me wish that A Touch Of Evil - Live wasn't a CD only release, because now I want the vinyl on my shelf as well.

Hand numbered out 7,500 pressed.

From Fear To Eternity

Iron Maiden released their From Fear To Eternity album back in 2011, and while I generally don't care about "best of" albums, that cover art looked so damn good that I wanted one for the collection. About 8 years later, I finally grabbed a copy.

From Fear To Eternity is a compilation that captures the "best" Maiden tracks from No Prayer For The Dying to The Final Frontier, and is kind of a companion record to the Somewhere Back In Time comp, which is the best of Maiden from 1980 through 1989. As I mentioned, I tend to leave the Best Of albums for your grandmother, and isn't anything that I'd be interested, but hey, I do love me some Iron Maiden.

The songs on this three record set are all great, and while there is definitely a division between Maiden's classic era of the 80's and the later day stuff, I'm in love with each, and looking at the track listing here gets me excited to listen to some of the more recent albums again. I'm not too excited about the picture disc format here, but really, who cares, it's not like I'll be spinning this very often...it is more of a collection piece for the completist.

Possibly A Fool

I picked up this Cinderella single from the same seller that had the Chilmark 7 inch. The guy obviously had no idea what he was doing on Discogs.

I've become interested in picture sleeve singles lately, and when I was picking up the Chilmark record, I noticed that he had Cinderella's Nobody's Fool 7 inch available as well. Now, I'm not actively searching out these singles for every band, but I they are fun to pick up when I stumble across one. The seller here had it listed as Near Mint condition, with a price tag of $2, and while I wasn't naive enough to fall for that "Near Mint" condition, I figured it was worth the gamble to add it to my order for that low price.

Damn dude, what part of this looks "near mint" to you? While the record does play great, the center label looks like they ran the entire thing through the dishwasher.

I sent the guy a message to let him know how far off base he was with these. I expected an aggressive response, but the guy was very apologetic, saying that he was new to Discogs and didn't understand what he was doing when he listed them, and has been going back to adjust his current listings. It was only $2 so I wasn't going to sweat it, but it amazes me when people stumble this badly.

Discogs And Chill

Chilmark were a hardcore band out of Cape Cod, Massachusetts back in the early 90's. They play that heavy emo style that was popular at the time, and became one of the defining sounds from those days.

Around '94, or so, I picked up some Chilmark records from a distro table at one of the shows I had traveled to in Massachusetts. It was basically a package deal where they must have had additional records for the Driftwood 7 inch, so they just stuck it in with the Mosaic 7 inch and packaging. I loved those two 7 inches...however, the CD EP that followed, was a bit disappointing. Still, it was good deal at the time, but it always kind of bothered me to just have that loose Driftwood record with no cover.

I was recently looking at Discogs to see what was available for Chilmark, and noticed that there was a seller offering a limited "band cover" for the Driftwood record. It was only listed at $5, so I jumped to buy it.

When it arrived, it was pretty obvious that it didn't match the limited pressing that it was listed as, and this is actually the regular pressing. I mean it was cheap, and I'm happy to finally have the record with the cover, so I'm not going to get too bent out of shape over it, but man, some sellers are absolutely clueless.

Bootleg Of The Beast

My buddy, Sandwell, is the king of Iron Maiden bootlegs. Dude has got some killer ones, and whenever he picks up a new boot, I get seriously jealous. Sometimes the Hells Headbangers distro will get some bootlegs in stock, so I make sure that I do a random search for Dio, Slayer and Iron Maiden whenever I'm in their webstore...and when I stumbled across one for Maiden a couple months ago, I quickly grabbed it.

Iron Maiden has released a ton of live albums over the course of their career, but they do have some holes that haven't seen an official release. One of those tours that did not get documented with a live album was the Ed Hunter tour in 1999. This was the first tour that Maiden did after reuniting with Bruce Dickinson and Adrian Smith, but before they entered the studio to record the Brave New World album. The band kept three songs from the Blaze Bayley era in the set for this tour... The Clansman, Futureal, and Man On The Edge... and I hadn't heard Bruce do a couple of those songs, so I was very excited to hear them here.

This double live record is a true bootleg, and not something that was released as a live radio broadcast, but the sound on this is still really good. This is a great recording, and it is always fun to listen to Bruce's un-edited rants and between song banter.

Nice gatefold packaging with the tour dates listed.