Smelly Nelly Single

While I try to keep serious and focused on chasing the important records for my collection, sometimes I just want to buy something stupid and have a good time. Adding new singles to the collection is never a priority, but it is always fucking fun. They are pointless in the long run, but for some reason, I still get a charge out of buying them.

Earlier this year, I picked up a couple of Krokus singles, and that ended up being so much fun that I grabbed a couple more. The good times keep rolling as I couldn't resist also picking up Smelly Nelly single from '81 recently. I'm not sure what it is about collecting Krokus records that has me excited...I think that I just get thrill out of buying records for bands that most people don't really care about. Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think that by the end of the 80's many people gave a shit about this band and their AC/DC inspired sound, and that is probably more so in 2022. It just makes me love them that much more.

German pressing of Smelly Nelly b/w Burning Bones.

Dischord Box

I was a later bloomer when it came to record collecting, and by the time I got serious with it, those early Dischord 7 inches were already way out of my league. I'd never even entertained the thought, but then at some point near the beginning of 2021, I started to think that maybe chasing something like a later pressing of the S.O.A. record might be fun. Yes, it was going to carry a high price tag, but fuck it, I felt like maybe I should make an attempt at a serious serious record like that.

Then a couple months later, Dischord announced that they were releasing a box set with the first six 7 inches, and all those thoughts about chasing a big ticket Dischord record went out the window. A $50 box set is much easier to swallow.

Everyone should know the deal with these six 7 inches, so I'm not going to go into any detail over them. Dischord did an amazing job creating these to mirror the original first pressings. If I'd spent the money or time collecting those original pressings, I might have a problem with this reproduction, but I don't, so I think this set is fantastic.

As a bonus, Dischord included a 7 inch with the unreleased songs from pre-The Teen Idles band, The Slinkees. This is cool from the historical beginnings of Dischord and those early bands, but it certainly is a shaky start. Fun for what it is.

Nice package all around. Of course you know that Dischord was going to do this right. Top quality.

Let The Vio-lence Burn

When forced to pick my favorite thrash album of all time, more often than not, you'll find me awarding the title to Vio-lence's Eternal Nightmare. It is only seven songs long, but it is a non-stop assault from start to finish. Absolute perfection. When I first heard that the band were back together and recording some new songs, I didn't know what to think. Could the band still play on the level of their peers like Testament, Overkill and Death Angel...or were they going to fall on their faces?

The first single they released was a cover of California Uber Alles, and that song was underwhelming as fuck. The band sounded good...Killian's vocals are great...but, man, listening to them cover that Dead Kennedys classic is just awkward. Plus the video with the slight bullshit slant of the "government is trying to control you with mask mandates" during a pandemic, isn't a good look. You'd think that a combo of Vio-lence and DK would be entertaining, but it isn't. Strange way to come out of retirement, and that they did a video for it, but I'm at least grateful that it didn't make it onto the new Let The World Burn EP. After the initial disappointment I approached the next single, Flesh From Bone, with a bit more apprehension but thankfully the band redeem themselves here.

I really enjoy the five songs on this EP. I know that the band was hesitant to release new material 29 years after their last album, but Let The World Burn is a nice addition to the Vio-lence catalog.

2000 Resurrection

I've mentioned it before, but I completely checked out of metal durning the 90's. While it was my life blood throughout the 80's, by the time we hit 1990 and 1991, I was discovering hardcore and those bands just seemed more real and vital to me. While metal was struggling to stay relevent through that decade, I was oblivious to it all. I suppose on some level, I was aware of the big changes like Dickinson leaving Iron Maiden and Halford taking an exit from Judas Priest. Funny enough, as I was starting to get interested in metal again around 2000, Maiden saw Dickinson return to the band, and Rob Halford was releasing the best thing that he'd done in ten years with the Resurrection LP from the Halford band. Metal still wasn't fashionable, but it was starting to make a comeback.

Goddamn. When Rob kicks off this album with the scream of "Resurrection" it gives me chills. The entire album is a monster, ripping with plenty of those Priest vibes that I loved in the 80's. Halford truly captures that metal spirit on this album, and it is no surprise that a few years later we would see him reunite with the rest of the Priest guys as 80's metal nostalgia was heating up.

Resurrection did see a vinyl pressing from the UK when it was released in 2000. That original pressing sells for around $200, so I was happy to see it was getting reissued this year. This reissue sounds good to me, but the packaging is kind of shitty. It is like they lost the original artwork, and resorted to using a smaller image that they blew up to fit the album cover. It isn't very clear and comes across as cheap.

300 pressed on silver vinyl.

Planet Based Diet

I was a huge fan of Voivod back in the 80's. I really liked the raw early albums, but with Killing Technology and Dimension Hatross, the band was on another level. Those two records are fucking perfect. Hell, even Nothingface from '89 was pretty cool. After that though, nothing has really interested me very much. I had some high hopes in the early 2000's when the band reunited with the original singer, Snake, and I've picked up a number of albums from the band since then, but each one failed to make much of an impression on me and was soon forgotten.

I didn't really have much interest in the latest Voivod record, Synchro Anarchy, but I still took the time to check out the video for Planet Eaters. Okay okay...this is a pretty cool song, but would Voivod be able to hold my attention across the entire album? Surprisingly, the answer is very much a yes. Even at almost 50 minutes, this record never feels too long, and I'm engaged throughout the entire thing. I haven't been this happy with a Voivod album since Nothingface. Very cool.

Transparent green vinyl for the US pressing is looking good.

Dead Last

At the start of 2022, I saw something about a new band named Dead Last. I've been super excited over new hardcore bands lately, so I probably would have checked them out regardless, however, seeing that Dead Last had some connection to one of my favorites from the past couple of years, Rule Them All, I didn't hesitate to order their 7 inch.

Dead Last are from Long Island, but they mention that they are inspired by those Boston bands from the 00's. I can definitely hear the influence from bands like Stop And Think and Free Spirit, and this 7 inch makes me want to dive back into that era. It has been a while since I've spent much time with those bands, and Dead Last are a great reminder of some cool shit that I've forgotten about over the years.

Light blue colored vinyl is limited to 100.

To Whatever Alternate Cover (Part III)

I was afraid that this was going to happen. When Triple B did the third pressing of Magnitude's To Whatever Fateful End album, and they changed the cover art from blue to green, I was worried that this theme might continue. Sure enough, with the recent fourth pressing, they change the cover art to purple, and of course I felt compelled to buy one.

I don't know why I felt the need to buy another copy of this record. I have no plans to build any kind of respectable collection for Magnitude, but now I have three copies of this album, so I obviously have no idea what I'm fucking doing. And you know what? If Triple B does a fifth pressing and changes the cover to some kind of red hue, I'll probably buy that too.

Cool looking purple in clear colored vinyl. 200 pressed.

Man, this is such a great record. Magnitude really nail that mid-90's chunky straight edge sound. Hard to believe that this album is already coming up on three years old.

Monument To Nothing

I've been struggling lately to find the time to keep this blog up to date. I've been training to run a 100 mile race in May, and the training lately has been sucking up all of my free time. This is easily the biggest (and dumbest) thing that I'm attempting to run, and I'm fucking overwhelmed by the thought of it, so I've been spending most of my free time on the weekends putting up miles on the road so that I can go into this race feeling like I've done all that I could to prepare. Earlier this year, I was starting to get a little worried that I was going to completely catch up on this blog and have zero records to write about, but then my production here has dropped way off and now I have about 25 records backlogged and waiting for me to write about. Let's try and get this blog back on track.

One of my favorite old school metal records that I picked up last year was the debut from Hallows Eve, Tales Of Terror. I love that record so fucking much, but I also enjoy all of the Hallows Eve records from the 80's, so when I was picking up some other records from a Discogs seller, and saw that they had the Monument album available, I was happy to grab that as well.

The Monument album from 1988 doesn't seem to get the same amount of attention that Tales Of Terror and Death And Insanity recieve, but man, this record is still fun to thrash along to...even the Queen cover song hits pretty hard.

The only problem that I have with this record is that the post office dropped the box off on my steps... in the rain... and I didn't notice it for hours. Water definitely seeped into the package, and while the other records were safe in their plastic sleeves, this Hallows Eve album got hit with some damage along the bottom of the sleeve. Fuck.