If God Only Knew 2025 Was Dead

The past couple of years have been turbulent ones for my musical landscape. In 2023 I started opening myself to be more accepting to some music that I'd previously built up walls against and it was a freeing experience... and then 2024 was a bit of an extension of that as a I grew from accepting a song or two to fully embracing albums from those bands. I hate to use the term "growth" when it comes to reaching out beyond my foundation of hardcore and metal, but it did feel nice to spend some time appreciating stuff that I would have normally ignored... so I'm indebted to friends that helped push me to that point.

For 2025 though, this past year I've felt myself returning a bit to my natural center. Sure, I've still found myself obsessing over bands that are still new to me like The Smiths and The Cure... and even spending periods listening to a lot of Lorde and Lana Del Rey... but where I really spent most of my time was with 90's hardcore. While I'm no stranger to periods of 90's hardcore obsession, this past year had me digging into a bunch of bands that I really didn't appreciate back in the day. Bands like Disembodied, Harvest, Union and Despair fueled my preoccupation with that era of hardcore, and that only ignited my desire to collect records. The past couple of years, this blog has limped along, barely making it to double digit posts each month... but by July this year, and after picking up vinyl for those old 90's bands... suddenly, I was buying a ton of used records and was excited to post about it. While I didn't end up putting up big post numbers for the year, I feel like I'm back on track. So let's get into what I got up to for 2025.

Looking back at records that I blogged about here this past year, there didn't seem to be a lot of big ticket items... not a whole lot that will make serious collectors take notice, but then again, that's not the stuff that I'm usually drawn to. Still, here are some of the highlights that I was excited about buying.

1. Disembodied 'If God Only Knew' and 'Psalms of Sheol' - Checking out Disembodied on a whim at the start of the year set off a chain reaction that had me desperate to discover stuff like this that I didn't pay attention to back in the 90's. This band was huge in setting the pace for what my year would look like and my 2025 would not have been the same had I not uncovered them.

2. The Cure 'Jumping Someone Else's Train' and 'Killing An Arab' - The Cure have become one of my favorite bands, and I really need to quit fucking around and pick up the vinyl for a couple of my favorite records... but when I found a seller with the first two singles from the band available, I didn't hesitate and spent a lot of money.

3. Bloodlet 'self titled' 7 inch on red vinyl - I love those first two Bloodlet 7 inches, and I've been desperate to get the red vinyl for the self titled on Smorgasbord Records for years. As I was obsessing over this kind of 90's metal influenced hardcore from Disembodied, this was the perfect time for me to find an buy a copy.

4. Thought Crusade test pressings - Buying a test press kind of makes me feel like a serious collector, even when it is for bands that no one really gives a shit about anymore. Buying these two Thought Crusade tests and completing my collection was a bit of a flex.

5. Druid 'Vampire Cult' - When my friend Jeff said that I couldn't buy the copy he was selling because it was too expensive, it made me more determined to buy a copy off eBay. Buing out of spite is satisfying.

6. Harvest 'Worn Through The Layer Of Separation' on purple - Look, all I wanted this year was every colored vinyl pressing of every Harvest record. I didn't think that I was asking too much, but apparently that shit isn't easy to come by. This 7 inch on purple vinyl was the only Harvest record I was able to pick up, so it makes the list by default because I fucking loved that band this past year.

7. Mercyful Fate Megaforce and Combat pressings - I've kind of been intimidated to chase the first two Mercyful Fate albums on their respective Megaforce and Combat pressings, but I was excited to be able to grab them in one shot from Tim's collection.

8. Face Reality 'Positive Change' 7 inch with Significant Fest cover - This one was special because it is so limited, with only 15 getting this Significant Fest cover, and I was able to find it in the wild while shopping at Wanna Hear It Records with Mark.

1. Combust - Belly Of The Beast

2. Speedway - A Life's Refrain

3. Spite House - Desertion

4. Berthold City - No Brotherhood

5. Scowl - Are We All Angels

6. Spiritual Cramp - Rude

7. Drain - ... Is Your Friend

8. AFI - Silver Bleeds The Black Sun

It is kind of hard to judge the state of the hardcore nation for this past year. I feel like I didn't really listen to a lot of new records until the second half of the year, and some of these I didn't start checking them out until the last couple of months. So any ranking that I attempt to do here, is subject to be wildly inaccurate six weeks from now. Still, there was some really good hardcore records released this year, including Never Again, Dynamite and Higher Power that all got bumped off the list at the last minute. This makes it seem like it was a good year, since I actually had to think about what I needed to trim off my list of Top 8. The Combust record is such a solid hardcore release that it was an obvious choice for me at number one, but who knows, I really like that Speedway record as well, and as I get more familiar with it, maybe it jumps to the top. I also had some variety here, as Spite House, Spiritual Cramp, Scowl and AFI are all a bit different than the standard hardcore and punk offerings. They are all unique and interesting, and it was really tough figuring out where to place them here. Interesting year for sure.

1. Gruesome - Silent Echoes

2. Zig Zags - Deadbeat At Dawn

3. Savage Master - Dark & Dangerous

4. Testament - Para Bellum

5. Seven Sisters - Shadow Of A Fallen Star, Pt 2

6. Sanhedrin - Heat Lightning

7. Coroner - Dissonance Theory

8. Midnight - Steel, Rust and Disgust

These days I have a strange relationship with new metal records. I really enjoy them when I first get the record and listen to it, and I'll spin it throughout the year, but then once the calendar changes to the new year, I rarely look back and those records largely get ignored. Sure there are some expections, I still really love to listen to any Savage Master record, but for the most part, I'll look back at previous lists and be like, oh yeah I forgot about that album. But still, there is some great stuff here... the new Gruesome album surprised me with how much I liked it, and Zig Zags was a fun find with their brand of punk influenced metal... Savage Master wasn't as great as their past stuff, but it was still some great metal that sounded like it came straight out of the 80's. So yeah, some great stuff here... I just hope that I don't lose track of it with 2026 starts tomorrow.

Since I wasn't listening to a lot of new releases, I guess it is good to cover where I was spending most of my time. Some of this I've already covered as rediscovering bands like Disembodied and Harvest were a big part of my year, but I also spent a lot of time with Union thanks to a tip from Marcus. The Cure released Songs Of A Lost World in 2024, but I loved that record so much that I kept obsessing over it this year as well. Same with Karate... they were on this list last year, but I kept slowly checking out their back catalog and loving everything that I've heard. I never expected to see Kingpin live again, so when they reunited for a show this past summer, I listened to their songs a lot. Discharge was basically a new discovery for me this past year... and while I'm not sure which early record of theirs I listened to the most, I did pick up the Why LP from Tim's collection, so I guess that that one gets the nod here. Yeah, Marilyn Manson was a bit of a surprise. My friend Sarah started off the year asking me if I wanted to listen to Manson's "worst" record, Born Villain, with her... we would dedicate some time to it and then report back with our thoughts. I ended up having such a good time with it, that I dove into some other Manson albums and ended up spending a lot of time with The Golden Age Of Grotesque. Shockingly fun. And then finally, Gypsy. Damn this record never gets old for me, and after introducing my friend Alex to one of their songs, I spent a lot of time spinning the record as it sunk its hooks into me again.

So yeah, there is my wrap up for the year. Like I said, I'm feeling good again about writing this blog, and I'm excited to be back at chasing records that mean a lot to me. To think that I'm coming up on my 20th anniversary in February of doing this silly record collecting blog, it kind of blows my mind. This blog has always been for myself first and foremost, but if you hang out and read the nonsense that I put down here, thanks for checking it out. I don't think that I have anything really important to say, but I have a good time with it.