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.

Purple To Write Home About

2025 was a big year for me when it came to discovering some 90's bands that I really didn't think that I liked. While bands like Disembodied and Harvest were the two that took most of my attention, I'd be remiss if I didn't also mention that I was surprised to find myself spending a bit of time with Saves The Day and The Get Up Kids as well. I listened to both of those bands a bit in the late 90's, and I enjoyed their sophomore albums from 1999, but soon after that I didn't bother much with either band and they have largely been forgotten over the past 25 years.

After talking with my friend Alex last year about music, and hearing her talk about how much she loved Saves The Day and The Get Up Kids, I figured that I'd check out their first couple of records again. Admittedly, I didn't hold out much hope in revisiting these two bands again. I'd generally filed them under "bands that I never need to hear again", so I was shocked when I found that I really enjoyed checking them out again. After repeat listens I figured that maybe I wanted to get something into my 90's record collection for either of them.

The first album from The Get Up Kids is definitely my favorite from the band, but Something To Write Home About is a nice slice of emo from that time as well. I was having trouble deciding what I wanted to pick up from the band. I wasn't sure if I wanted to spend the money that discogs sellers were asking for Four Minute Mile, and when I saw this purple vinyl version of their second album, it just felt like the right choice.

I wasn't going to get too wrapped up in my obsession for the band last summer, and I didn't need to commit to a first pressing... nah, this second pressing from 2009 on purple did the job nicely.

Dare O.C.S.E.

I didn't pay any attention to the band Dare until REV released their Against All Odds LP in 2021. I was excited for that album and started to look back to check out what they had released with Reaper a few years earlier. I still haven't fucked with the OC Straight Edge record though, and I'm sorry but I just haven't found the strength to even listen to the songs for something that was only released as a flexi... the self-titled Dare 7 inch though, yeah that was something that I could get down with.

So as REV was set to release the LP, I figured that I could swoop in and pick up the Dare 7 inch somewhere. I had no luck. Reaper was sold out of it, and surprisingly only did the one pressing... and I couldn't even find one available on Discogs. The market was dry and as time went on I kind of forgot about it. It had been a few years since I'd even thought to listen to those songs, but then as I was picking up a Despair 7 inch recently, I saw the seller had the Dare record available as well. Easy decision to drop it into the cart too.

I guess I'm not the only one that forgot about this band because this was relatively cheap to pick up.

300 pressed on the yellow and blue split.

Despair Bleeds Blue

Last year I found a new level of appreciation for a handful of 90's hardcore bands... with one of them being Despair. I didn't really pay much attention to them in the mid-90's because bands like Fastbreak, Floorpunch and Ten Yard Fight had taken over my world... but here we are 30 years later and Despair fills the hole in my 90's hardcore heart.

I'd picked up a couple of Despair records last year, and sure enough, after posting about them during my 90's Week series, I found this copy of As We Bleed on blue. It's taken me five months to finally get it posted here because my record backlog is a little out of control, but it feels good to give these songs a spin again today and talk about this band on the blog again.

Number 26 of 100 pressed on blue vinyl.

Lower G.I. Bleed

The 90's were rich with various styles of punk and hardcore... from the straight forward New Age Records stuff to the more emo and discordant Ebullition style... and I love all of it.

I loved Native Nod back in the 90's and like many bands of this style, time and time again they will pop on my radar and I won't be able to get enough of them. For the past three years, Native Nod just keeps coming back for me... a song will catch my ear and I'll be back to obsessing over their three record, nine song, output all over again.

I never bought the Zither 7 inch back in the day. Gern Blandsten had released the Native Nod discography CD around the same time as that last Native Nod 7 inch, and at the time the CD was all that I needed. 30 years later and I keep coming back to this band over and over, and I needed to correct errors of the past and finally get that 7 inch. I put that record on my Discogs want list, but for years it seemed like the only sellers that had it available were from overseas. It was odd... like why were there no US sellers with this at a reasonable price? Last year my call was finally answered and I was able to pick this up. Damn, this sound is so good and it will now most likely push me to listen to this 90's emo sound for the next couple of weeks at least.

Majority Rule

When I first discovered Rule Them All back in 2019, I immediately fell in love with that band. I listened to them consistently over the next couple of years, and sang their praise for each record I posted here. I remember being a bit disappointed at the time when I discovered that the band's 12 inch, An Alignment Of Polarity, was only pressed on black vinyl. I loved the band and wanted something to collect for that record, but I didn't think that I had much of a chance in finding the versions with the special covers, so I just took my common black vinyl and figured that was the end of the line.

Imagine my surprise when I was checking discogs last summer and found a seller with the special cover that pays tribute to the Life Of A Spectator record cover from Silent Majority. The price didn't seem too bad, but it didn't really matter... I was buying it regardless.

Number 13 of only 30 made, with the Daze logo stamped on the center label, so I'm extremely happy to have this in the collection.

Pummel For A King

I'm not sure what it is about the Pummel 7 inch, but it is one of the few newer records that I feel compelled to collect. It is a solid hardcore record from a band out of Boston, the label didn't get stupid with a bunch of different color vinyl options, plus the band has broken up, so I know that this one 7 inch will cover their entire output... essential traits if I want to bother attempting to collect everything for a record.

Picking up the Joey's World cover for the Pummel 7 inch last summer was the tipping point. Prior to that I was content with the two copies that I owned... one on blue and one on white... but with the special cover added to the collection, suddenly I wanted them all. Luckily as I was adding to the collection in Discogs, I saw there was a seller that had the record release version with the lion cover, and I was able to spend more money.

I remember when Pummel played their record release show. Covid was really starting to kick in, and while I really wanted to go to the show, the thought of the two and half hour drive down to Massachusetts and south of Boston was enough to turn me off and keep me home. How the fuck was that six years ago? Oh well, got that record release cover eventually.

Full Speed Ahead

This post is gonna make you feel like we have traveled back in time. Welcome to 2012, when this blog was popping off with almost 200 posts for the year and it was loaded with records like this Rain On The Parade 7 inch. In fact, I picked up seven ROTP records that year, so it feels funny to think that we are here 14 years later and I'm like "yeah, it's time to finish that Full Speed Ahead collection".

I remember at the time having a bit of a difficult time tracking down Full Speed Ahead with the yellow cover. Fast foward to last summer and when I was picking up the Lights Out 7 inch on yellow, I noticed that the seller had this ROTP record available as well, and I didn't hesitate to add it to the cart.

When I was bouncing around on the internet looking at Rain On The Parade historical pricing, I found that this exact record sold on eBay back in 2016 for $21. Cool to see that some prices have stayed relatively flat over the years as I picked this up for only a few dollars more.

Grabbed a picture of the full set with this cover variation... although thinking about it now, it feels like I should have just pulled out all ten different versions that I have of this, and included them all in a family photo.

Yellow Lights

I was hyped on hardcore last year, and in my mania I was chasing down a bunch of cool records that I've wanted for a while. Give me all the hardcore records.

I always tended to overlook the Get Out 7 inch from Lights Out. Their Overload album was just so perfect to me that I found I rarely made time for that first EP. Twenty years later and I'm finally getting down with that Lights Out 7 inch. I had picked up the posi numbers version early last year and very quickly ended up wanting to build that collection. I found a seller on Discogs that had the first press yellow vinyl available and I jumped on it.

So I still need the record release cover for this, and while I would say that I don't normally buy the black vinyl version, the collector bug bit hard and I do want to chase down those two different black pressings with the center label variations.

New World Discharge

Discharge's Grave New World album has a reputation... and it isn't a good one. I've heard people tearing down this record for years, but I'd never actually listened to it, and just accepted the critiques on blind faith. However, when I saw the record was available from Tim's collection, alongside a few of the band's classics, I figured that maybe the time was right to see if it was as bad as everyone says.

After seeing that Jeff had Grave New World available from Tim's collection, I immediately queued it up on Spotify to listen to it on the car ride home. Sometimes I can enjoy the shambles of a band trying to do something different, so I was kind of excited to check out this messy Discharge (yes, I'm aware of how that sounds)... however, I only made it partway into the second song when I texted Jeff from the car to say no thanks and that he could sell it through eBay. It was a rough listen and I could easily see why people generally do not like this album. But then months later when I was posting about the Ignorance record from Discharge, I thought that I might want to try Grave New World again.

Look, I totally get why people wouldn't like this album, but there is something about being the contrarian that attracts me, and after approaching Grave New World knowing what to expect, I didn't think it was terrible. Sure it's A TERRIBLE DISCHARGE RECORD, but taken out of that context I found that I could kind of enjoy it (although it would be better if they cut the 15 minute long song The Downward Spiral). Since I have affection for owning bad records from bands that I really like, I reached back out to Jeff to see if he still had that copy of Grave new World. My luck, my loss... he did.

Drastic Actions

There have been a few records from Tim's old collection that have carried a higher price tag than I'm used to spending, and I've been on the fence if I should pull the trigger on them or not. In every instance where I stepped up and threw money out the window for a classic record, like Social Distortion or Minor Threat, I've never regretted the decision... while I still kick myself for letting The Smiths Hatful Of Hollow with a misprint sleeve go because I thought it was too expensive. So when I saw the first Bad Religion EP 12 inch available from Tim's collection, I again started wringing my hands over the price.

The Bad Religion EP is such a classic punk record and one that I needed in my collection regardless of the price. The original 7 inch pressing of this carries a much higher price tag, and while the 12 inch reissue from 1984 is still expensive, it is a price that I am much more comfortable paying.

I was really not going to find this record in better condition, so it was money well spent.

Haunting Tim's Collection

16 years ago I picked up a colored vinyl reissue of Slayer's Haunting The Chapel EP. Checking my post for it at the time, I seemed pretty excited about it. I was pretty thrilled about the vinly resurgence at the time, and it felt like any new record purchase was a vote to keep the format alive. Also I was deep into a collector's mindset and wanted stupid amounts of different colored vinyl options for every record I bought. So yeah, when the early Slayer catalog saw it's first vinyl reissue in 20 years, I was excited to rush out and buy them.

Of course these days, cooler heads prevail, and a constant stream of vinyl reissues has gotten tired and boring. Haunting The Chapel alone has seen at least three additional reissues since that one from 2009, and I couldn't care less. My collector head really is only interested in the original pressing at this point, and to be able to pick up this mint copy from Tim's collection, still with the shrinkwrap and hype sticker, had me feeling like I finally got it right this time.

Classic three song EP. Classic pentagram logo. Classic Metal Blade center labels. Perfect.

Line Of Refuse 25

I had my love for hardcore rekindled in big way during the last half of last year. I was excited checking out 90's hardcore bands that I kind of missed the first time around, I had a blast picking up some fun records at Wanna Hear It, I was picking up some cool shit from bands that no one cares about in 2025, and there was some fun new hardcore poppin'. In the middle of all that, I was buying a bunch of records that I didn't get posted up here because the backlog outweighed the number of posts that I could produce at the time. So yeah, here is something that I picked up last August.

So in my hardcore mania, I happened to stumble upon Line Of Sight. I really liked this band when I heard their Dissent 7 inch back in 2018, and it is a shame that they seemed to have disappeared after that record. I dunno, man, listening to this again today, and I'm inclined to say it is one of my favorite hardcore 7 inches in recent years (you know, if 7 years is recent).

When the Dissent 7 inch was released, Refused Records over in Europe combined it with the band's demo and pressed it to a 12 inch. As I was hungry for hardcore last summer, I was checking Discogs to see if there was any Line Of Sight records available, and I was happy to discover that a US seller had the Refuse 25th anniversary edition availble for a good price.

Number 23 of 25 made.