Metal For Muthas II

The first Metal For Muthas compilation was released very early in 1980 and helped to get the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal flag waving. The comp featured a couple of NWOBHM beasts with Iron Maiden and Angel Witch, and so the label immediately followed it up later that year with Volume II.

Volume II of Metal For Muthas may not carry the same heavy hitters but, I don't know, in some ways I may reach for this follow up more often. Maybe it's because I'm so familiar with the Maiden and Angel Witch songs from the first one, and this second record just feels more fresh to me. The two songs from Trespass are fantastic, plus a song from the excellent and underrated Jameson Raid (listed here as The Raid) are the foundation here for me... but really, there is not a bad track here. All of it probably sadly overlooked except by the diehards.

One more NWOBHM record that I was able to pluck from Tim's collection, so you know it is in great shape.

Without Time X Heist Love

Occasionally I'll get a message from someone on Discogs asking if I'd be interested in selling a specific record. Spoiler alert, the answer is always no... I don't care how much you are offering. Early last year, this dude dropped me a note asking if I'd be willing to sell the copy I had of The Only Blood Between Us from Go It Alone. I had picked up that record at Posi Numbers back in 2005, and it was my only copy of that album in my collection, so I wrote him back to let him know. The guy took the opportunity to promote his own band, saying that GIA was a big influence on them, and maybe I'd be interested in checking them out. Most times I'm gonna just move on from this kind of thing and not bother, but I don't know, for some reason I figured that I'd give them a listen.

It was no surprise that I'd never heard of his band, Without Love, but when I noticed that they released a split with Time X Heist, I was a bit more interested. I'd seen the name Time X Heist around and the X in the name certainly caught my attention... so I downloaded the songs.

It took me a while to actually sit with these songs, but when I did, I liked what I heard. Each band plays that early 2000's style of hardcore, and as advertised Without Love does show that Go It Alone influence, while the Time X Heist songs kind of remind me of Where Fear And Weapons Meet, especially with Keep On Fighting and I expected them to rhyme "We can't go back to the way it was before" with the word "hardcore"... if they did, it would have been a near perfect match. This record was a nice introduction to two bands that I hadn't heard yet.

Celtic Tales

The majority of my Celtic Frost collection has been pulled from Tim, so it only made sense to pick up the first record, Morbid Tales, from him as well.

Celtic Frost were never really a big band for me while growing up. I liked them, but they were a bit too raw and rough for my thrash tastes and it seems that I rarely reached for them. Listing to Morbid Tales this week as I was thinking about writing this blog post, and I have to say that I appreciate this band much more today.

The black and white photos decked out in bullet belts and studded armbands, the touch of red lettering and the text style makes this back cover especially cool. Such a good look.

While this copy doesn't include the poster that is mentioned on the front cover, it does however include a promo sheet and photo card that has the band's signatures on the back. I'm not sure what the story is on this. I don't know if Tim picked it up this way, or if he saw the band and had them sign the card himself, but either way it is cool to own.

Rival Damage

When I'd ordered a copy of the I Rise / Soul Control split through Discogs last year, it turned out that the seller was Kyle Whitlow that used to run Rivalry Records. He was a little late in sending the order out, so he threw in a bunch of Rivalry stuff that he still had laying around. I found most of it useless to me, and wished that he hadn't done me the "favor"... but in amongst all of the copies of the Soul Control album with no sleeves was this 7 inch from The Damage Control.

I really wasn't familiar with this band. I have a copy of the Never Wash Away 7 inch from The Damage Done, but it never really stuck with me and it has been well over 10 years since I've even listened to it. However, after writing up the Frostbite post the other day, and talking about early 2000's hardcore that I missed the first time around, I decided that maybe I should revisit The Damage Done and finally check out this City Of Hope 7 inch that Kyle had sent me.

Initially I was indifferent to receiving this 7 inch, but this record kind of fits my mood right now, and I'm glad to have had this dropped into my hands. Early 2000's hardcore is currently my vibe, and the City Of Hope record fits in nicely alongside the other stuff from that time period that I'm listening to.

The Blizzard Of '26

The early 2000's were a weird time for me with hardcore. While I was still into well known hardcore bands like Bane and Over My Dead Body, for the most part I just remember being really excited over stuff from Anti-Flag and Good Riddance more. There were a lot of bands from that time that I didn't check out until a couple of years later simply because I was so disconnected from what was going on, and some bands that I'm still not really too familiar with.

History lesson. A little over 12 years ago, back in 2013, Marcus made a post over on his blog that included a copy of the Frostbite 7 inch with the Floorpunch rip off cover. I admitted in the comments that I'd never heard Frostbite before, and I told by Marcus and Nico that I needed to fix that oversight as soon as possible. I quickly rushed over to Soulseek and downloaded the songs... I listened to them once and then proceeded to let them gather digital dust on my hard drive.

Near the end of last year, I found myself digging into that early 2000 shit, and spinning stuff like the last Reach The Sky EP and Cut The Shit, and I saw that Frostbite EP sitting there in my iTunes. I gave it a listen and it clicked with me immediately. It was so good that I rushed to Discogs to pick up the record. I saw the Floorpunch rip off cover with a good price and I didn't hesitate to add it to my cart.

I don't know what my problem was back in 2013 because this 7 inch rips. Straight forward and raw hardcore... I really dropped the ball on this one. "Fuck that and fuck you and fuck everything."

I was loving this record so much that I felt the need to pick up another cover variation. I saw a seller had this Robby Redcheeks birthday bash edition with the Philly Liberty Bell cover and I decided to pick this one up too.

As I was obsessing over this 7 inch, I felt like I couldn't make a post about the record without at least picking up a copy with the regular sleeve, so I grabbed this very light baby blue colored vinyl pressing.

There are a lot of different versions of this record out there, and grabbing these three were a nice start. I'm not sure how far I want to chase these, although there a few more versions that I'd really like to pick up at some point. I was set to pick up the Sex Pistols rip off sleeve but then the seller flaked and changed his mind, wanting to keep it for himself... so that was too bad... but yeah, I have the collector itch right now, and want more of these.

Eternal Vio-lence

Forced to pick a favorite thrash record, 9 times out of 10 I'm probably picking the debut LP from Vio-lence, Eternal Nightmare. It's possible that you'd catch me on an off day, and I'd maybe say Reign In Blood, The Legacy or Bonded By Blood... but for the most part, that first album from Vio-lence can't be beat. 36 minutes of a never ending thrash attack. Perfection.

It is shocking that it has taken me this long to finally pick up a copy, but sometimes these old thrash classic sit on my wantlist forever as I wring my hands over the perfect copy to pick up at the perfect price. Fuck it. When I saw the seller that I bought the Acrophet album from on Discogs also had Vio-lence, I wasn't playin'. Time to buy.

So happy to finally have this in the collection.

Acrophet Minds

Near the end of last year, I'd was looking at some of the old metal records that I'd picked up from Tim's collection, plus new releases from Testament and Coronor, and it put me in a nostalgic mood for those classic late 80's days of thrash. 1988 was a high point for me with music... I was graduating from High School and hanging with friends and thrash was king for us... so one night I reached back to my playlist for that year and noticed an album from Acrophet sitting there at the top of the list (because my playlist is sorted alphabetically by band name obviously).

I was about 30 years late in discovering Acrophet's Corrupt Minds album, when it was put on my radar in 2019... I'd been listening to Mindforce and digging back into DRI and Suicidal, so I probably stumbled upon the Acrophet name after searching through lists of crossover bands and trying to decide what to listen to next. I did a quick download of the Acrophet album and while immediately enjoyed what I heard, I also quickly forgot about it for years. When I saw the songs on my 1988 playlist I decided to give it a listen and it was perfect for me at that time. Socially conscious anti-authority lyrics set to lightning fast music... and metal dudes on the back cover wearing Minor Threat and Agnostic Front shirts... yeah this was exactly what I needed and set the album up for repeat listens for the next few days.

When I started checking Discogs to see what may be available, I noticed that there was a blue vinyl pressing from back when the record was first released in '88. I've mentioned here before how colored vinyl releases for old 80's metal releases seems like such a rarity from those times... so I obviously needed this version. That blue wax from Triple X Records looks so good!

Gaskin's World

I haven't done a great job keeping up with my New Wave Of British Heavy Metal collection. In fact, I haven't picked up a single one since the great NWOBHM Chase Of 2022. There are still some crucial records from bands like Samson and Satan that I need in my collection, but I've just been so obsessed with hardcore lately that I haven't been listening to much NWOBHM and therefore I haven't been buying it. However, spending time with Jeff the past couple of weekends, on late night drives to New Hampshire and Boston, the NWOBHM playlist has been ripping and it's had me thinking of chasing those records again.

So it was perfect timing when the first Gaskin album, End Of The World, came up in my blog backlog for this post. This has been a weird record for me... strange because when I saw it available from Tim's collection, I was fairly certain that I already owned it. I asked Jeff to set it aside so that I could double check, but I was like 90% sure that I already had a copy. I got home and checked my record shelves and didn't see it. That's odd. Maybe I filed it incorrectly and it was stuck in a different section. I checked Discogs and my record database tool, sure that I would see it marked as owned there. No and no. I was shocked that I didn't already have this album. Thankfully it was fairly cheap to pick up from Tim's collection, but at least now I know that I own this.

Gaskin are one of those classic NWOBHM bands. Their sound and songs are not really at the level of the bigger bands from that era, like Iron Maiden, Raven, Angel Witch and the first Def Leppard, but goddamn, the youthful passion for this music and the conviction behind it is so endearing to me... I can't help but love it.

Total Soul Ignition

If I'm thinking about my favorite newer hardcore bands from the last five years or so, Method Of Doubt would definitely be near the top of that list. Their Staring At Patterns album came out at the end of 2021, and I still bounce out of my seat when that bass line kicks off the record. Fuck. So good. What other new band can make me want to chase down every pressing they make? It's a short list for sure, but with Method Of Doubt, I need it.

I don't fuck around with Scheme releases. I'm still sore about missing out on the colored vinyl for the Wreckage 7 inch a couple years ago, so when Scheme releases something that I'm interested in, I don't waste time thinking about it... I just buy it. So when the label announced preorders for the new Method Of Doubt 7 inch, Total Soul Ignition, I didn't hesitate to grab both colors of the vinyl.

With this new 7 inch, Method Of Doubt do not disappoint and they give me exactly what I want. Look, there is no denying the classic hardcore greats... that shit can't be beat... but when I hear new stuff like this record, it makes me excited for hardcore. "I know our youth is leaving, but I still feel the same."

108 pressed on pink vinyl, and 165 on mint.

Mil-Sandwich

I was a couple years late when Mil-Spec's Marathon album landed on my radar. When Marcus tipped me off that Lockin' Out had the colored vinyl in their store I quickly grabbed one. Marathon ended up being such a surprise to me. I loved what I heard, so when the newest Mil-Spec EP went up for sale a couple of months later I didn't hesitate to place my order.

I said the same thing about the Marathon LP, but if I saw this new Mil-Spec record in a store, based on the cover alone, I'd pass right by this. There is nothing going on here that would entice me to buy this. The guys like their six foot sandwiches apparently. Thankfully the Mil-Spec name is all that I needed to check this out because these songs are so good.

Five songs... well four, since the last song here is just an extended version of the record opener, When The Music Ends... and I've been listening to this daily.

Forethought Of Autumn

A few years ago I picked up the new retrospective LP for the old mid-90's hardcore band Autumn. The band seemed a bit obscure to me, so it was kind of surprising that someone took the time to put this record together and a press a few hundred copies to vinyl... but I love that someone felt that level of passion for the band, and wanted to get the Autumn name back out there 25+ years later. I admire that commitment because fuck yes, there are a number of lost 90's bands that I would love to see finally get a this kind of treatment. Anyway... as I was reading the notes on the insert covering the history of the band, I learned that before they changed their name to Autumn, they were previously called Forethought. I did a little digging and found that they had released a 7 inch under that name, and I knew that I needed to check it out.

Forethought recorded the Sands Of Salvation 7 inch in 1992, and this is quintessential early 90's hardcore... think bands like Framework, Encounter, Another Wall etc... and you know that I eat that shit up. With that in mind, it should surprise no one that when I first heard these songs, I immediately went on the hunt for this record.

The pink colored vinyl for this 7 inch doesn't show up too often on Discogs, so when I recently saw that there was one available, I jumped on it. No better feeling than discovering and falling in love with an obscure hardcore band from the 90's.

Church Obsessed

While I've enjoyed some stuff from The Obsessed, I've never been crazy about them. I've bought their last two albums, Sacred from 2017 and Gilded Sorrow from 2024, but I've never really spent much time with their more classic albums from the 90's. My friend Jeff, on the other hand, loves their classic Lunar Womb and The Church Within records. A month or so ago, I noticed that The Obsessed were playing a gig in New Hampshire at this place called The Stone Church. I did a quick search to see how far away it was, because if it was convenient I'd consider going. As soon as I saw a picture of the place, which looked like this perfect old New England church, I knew that I had to see the band play there. I quickly fired off a message to Jeff, and we made plans to go.

The Obsessed finished off a European tour in October last year playing just about everything off of The Church Within. I didn't expect that they would do the same for this latest tour, but since I was unfamiliar with the album I spent a lot of time with it in February. I was glad that I did because The Obsessed continued clebrating this record with their show in Newmarket, New Hampshire, and played nine songs from that album.

While I was just looking forward to a nice night out with live music, I didn't expect to be so excited with the show. There weren't a lot of people there, so I was able to easily step right up to the front of the stage... the sound was great and the band was tight... and within a few songs I was hooked and having such a great time.

Immediately after the set, Jeff and I were standing there at the merch table checking out what the band had available. I really wanted to buy something to support the band on the road, but I wasn't sure if I wanted a shirt from them. As we were standing there, Wino came up and was thanking us for coming out to the show. We started talking with him a bit and he was genuinely nice and appreciative that we were there (even if the photo makes him seem more annoyed with us). Jeff asked if he would sign a record if he picked one up, and Wino agreed. Now I'm not usually one that is interested in signatures from the band, but there was something about this moment that felt right, so I bought The Church Within vinyl and had him sign mine as well.

Goddamn. It is amazing how a live experience can change your perspective of a band. I've been listening to a lot of The Obsessed since that show and loving it.

Preach The Legacy

I'm still over here mining thrash classics from Tim's collection. This time I took the opportunity to grab a couple of Testament records.

Testament's Practice What You Preach album was a big deal for me at the time. It was released on my birthday in August of 1989, and when I found out that they were going to be playing at The Channel in Boston that November, I decided that I wanted to go see them. I'd never gone to a show out of state, so the thought of it was both thrilling and terrifying. I convinced a group of friends to make the trip with me, and we all piled into my car and headed to Boston for the day. This was obviously back in the day before GPS, so we just grabbed a map and hoped for the best. The two hour drive to The Channel ended up taking us more like four as we continually got lost within Boston's confusing roadways, but we eventually found the club and it was a life changing show. Until that point, I was only used to big arena shows for those few bands that toured as far north as Maine... but to be on the floor of a packed club opened my eyes to how great and intimate a live show could be. Honestly, I don't remember much about the band playing because I was probably acting a fool in the mosh pit, but from that moment on I started making regular trips to Providence and Boston to see bands play.

While probably not considered as strong as the previous two Testament albums, The Legacy and The New Order, Practice What You Preach is still a classic from the band, and I'm so glad to finally have this in my collection.

Technically, I guess that I didn't need to buy this copy of The Legacy, but personally I kind of needed it. Mark Sandwell gave me UK pressings of The Legacy and The New Order when he was visiting the US back in 2019, and I was most thankful for his kindness with this gesture. That said however, I was a little bit disappointed that I didn't have US pressing for these albums. I felt like for classic US thrash bands, a US pressing was the proper way to go.

I was content with the UK copy from Mark, until I had the chance to pick up the US Megaforce version from Tim's collection, and I took the opportunity when it was in front of me.

Pink Has The 10 1/2

A few years ago, I picked up a couple of Black Flag records on colored vinyl. Those purchases were a couple of highlights for me for that year, and last Fall I wanted to get back to it and feel that kind of rush again.

Black Flag's live album, Who's Got The 10 1/2?, was kind of big deal for me as a kid. I didn't own Loose Nut or In My Head at the time, and this live record is full of songs from those albums so it got a lot of playing time from me. The whole set is just so catchy, and Henry's banter is top notch... perfect live record. When I was looking for some colored vinyl for Black Flag, I was happy to find this available on Discogs.

Man, that pink vinyl looks so good.

Red Rise And Control

Often times, as I'm posting a record here on the blog, I'll stumble upon another version that I need and I'll immediately buy it as I'm caught up in the heat of the moment.

This is what happened after I picked up the white tour cover for the split 7 inch with I Rise/Soul Control at Wanna Hear It when I was there last year with Sandwell. Adding that to the collection made me want more, and when I saw that this red vinyl version was available on Discogs, I immediately bought it.

The discogs seller ended up being Kyle Whitlow, who used to run Rivalry Records and did his Seeking The Simple blog. He was delayed on shipping out this split 7 inch, and sent me a message apologizing for it, saying that he was going to throw in some extra records from his Rivalry days to make up for it. This ended up being a copy of both the Red Handed and Soul Control LPs (that I already own), plus two more copies of the Soul Control record on red vinyl (with no sleeve), and then about 15 posters from various Rivalry bands... so basically it was a bunch of stuff that I didn't need and now I need to store it or get rid of it myself.

Spiritual Gang

Back at the end of September, my friend Gina was in town with her husband as they were starting their honeymoon vacation trip touring the New England coast. I met up with them that night and took them over to Green Hand Books to drool over the expensive horror paperbacks, and then on the walk to the restaurant, they wanted to stop and check out Coast City Comics. I'm not big on comics, so I'd never been into this store, and wasn't really expecting anything of interest. Wow, I was wrong. There were all kinds of fun horror movie things like pins and magnets, and I grabbed a few packs of Evil Dead trading cards to send off to my friends Alex and Sarah. I'm not one to be social and talk with people that work in stores... I will typically just pay for my shit and leave... but I ended up in a conversation with the guy behind the counter about punk bands and horror movie soundtracks while everyone else was shopping and I genuinely had a really good time there. I need to make it a point to stop in there more often.

As we were in Coast City Comics, I discovered that they had a small record section, so I started flipping through them. I wasn't really expecting much, but when I saw this split 7 inch with Spiritual Cramp and Chubby and the Gang, I was very excited and immediately placed it with the small pile of things that I was buying.

The split 7 inch is part of a comic book series called What's The Furthest Place From Here. Each edition in the series comes with a split 7 inch with bands performing a cover song. For this one, Spiritual Cramp does a Radio Birdman cover, and Chubby and the Gang do a song originally by The Kids. I was not familiar with either of these songs, but I love what SC and Chubby do with these covers. I think that I'm going to have to check out both of these old late 70's punk bands and see what I've been missing.

Live Undead

Another first press Slayer record that I was able to pick up from Tim's collection.

Slayer's Live Undead has always been a "nice to have" type of record and has never been something that I've actively tried to track down.... maybe that's because it was originally only pressed as a picture disc, and I'm not really fond of the format. Still, that was the format that I remember seeing advertised in magazines as a kid, so as I'm building my Slayer collection, this picture disc was really the only way that I was going to be satisfied.

The original press only contains three live songs on side A, and then side B has three studio tracks tacked on from their Show No Mercy LP and the Haunting The Chapel EP... which makes it really feel unnecessary, as later pressings include four more songs from that live session. I still have my 2011 reissue so if I'm going to put a Live Undead record on the turntable it would most likely be that one... but still, there is something special about finally owning this original picture disc.

Combat Onslaught

I'm slowly still working through the backlog of records that I picked up last year, but haven't had the time to get posted up here. I've been taking my time picking through Tim's collection, but there is still plenty left to be excited about.

Onslaught was an 80's thrash metal band out of Bristol in the UK. I remember seeing the band's name around back in those days, but I didn't end up hearing them until '89 when they enlisted Steve Grimmett from Grim Reaper to do vocals for their In Search Of Sanity album. That was a good record, but it seemed that the main consensus was that the first two Onslaught records was where it was at. For one reason or another, those early Onslaught albums were more difficult for me to find in the stores at the time, so it was many years later and in a file sharing music download age before I was able to finally check them out.

Both Power From Hell and The Force proved to be fantasic slabs of 80's thrash, but because I was so late in hearing them, I've never really spent much time with either one. As soon as I saw The Force in Tim's collection, I knew that I was going to have to buy it... and 2026 seems like a great time to really spend some time getting familiar with it.

Thrash till the death!

20 Years True

As I was preparing for the 20th anniversary for this blog, and looking at releases from 2006 that I could celebrate with, there was one more record that I wanted to pick up in addition to the Sinking Ships album. So consider this part 2 of yesterdays post.

True Colors were another band that released a record in 2006 when I was starting up this blog, but I didn't end up hearing about them for another year or so when they released the Focus On The Light album. Man, I loved this band over those early blog years, and collected a decent amount of TC vinyl, but somehow never managed to pick up a single version of that first 7 inch from 2006. It seems a bit difficult to find True Colors vinyl available these days, so I was very happy to find this version of the 7 inch available from a US seller for my 20th anniversary.

I never really spent much time with this record, but I've been listening to these 7 inch songs a lot this year. It gives me exactly what I want right now as I'm in this mindset for those often overlooked mid 2000's years of hardcore.

This preorder camo sleeve is rad, and I'm so happy to score one. Number 91 of 100 made.

20 Years Disconnecting

Today is the 20th anniversary of this blog. I started this thing on a whim when a friend of mine said that he was starting a blog about his journey getting into stand up comedy, and I felt the urge to document something here as well. I'd just started getting into record collecting the year before and it had become an obsession. I was constantly scouring eBay, and I was creating checklists for things like my short lived plan to collect all of the Bridge Nine pressings (truly a sign of my 2006 mindset LOL), and starting a "record nerd" blog to write about the things I was buying just seemed to make sense. Who knew that 20 years and 2,644 post later I'd still be doing this thing?

To say that this blog has become my personality would be an understatement. I'm not sure who I'd be right now without it. I love writing about this shit and documenting my musical obsessions, and sometimes I question if I'm buying records because I need to own them or if I'm just using it as an excuse to talk about it here. Either way, I still get a kick out of this thing and don't see myself stopping anytime soon.

When I noticed that I was coming up on 20 years here, I started to put some thought into what I should do to commemorate the event. I wanted a record to post today that was going to fit the 20 year anniversary theme and it seemed that something released in the year that I started this blog would be a good way to go. I started checking my 2006 playlist and discovered a couple of records that I'd never picked up over the past 20 years and figured that now was the time.

It took me a long time to really get into Sinking Ships. I had a brief obsession with them a few years ago, but still I've never really paid much attention to their album from 2006, Disconnecting. After giving the songs a couple of spins last month, I knew that I needed the record for this 20 year anniversary post.

It might have taken me a while to get there, but I am loving this album right now. So happy that I was prompted to give it my attention.

99 pressed on blue vinyl.

Iron Chic Ys

Iron Chic were a punk band that were huge for me around 2012/2013. Their albums were such a surprise... so catchy and so much fun... and it felt like I was listening to them constantly during those years that I first discovered them. They released a bunch of singles at the time as well, but for one reason or another I didn't put much effort into chasing them... part of that may have been because they did a few split 7 inches and I just wasn't interested in some band that I'd never heard of on the b-side, but in the case of the Ys EP it just wasn't easily available at the time.

The Ys 7 inch was released from a label in Australia, and I remember at the time that it was just a difficult one for me to get my hands on. It seemed like it was only available from overseas sellers, and I wasn't interested in paying the postage to get one so I threw it onto my Discogs want list and figured that at some point I'd be able to pick it up for a decent price. Fast forward 10 years, and I was finally able to grab a copy.

It's kind of nice that it took me this long to get my hands on this 7 inch as it is some new Iron Chic material that I hadn't heard until now. Two new songs and a cover of Dog Bite from Dead Kennedys... yeah, this sounds good in my ears.