Dusted Angel

It's always cool to get a recommendation from a friend out of the blue, and even better when it's a good one that clicks right away.

Back in February, I was getting ready to step out the door to clear the driveway from the latest snowstorm, and I had a message from my old blogger friend Chris, asking if I'd heard Dusted Angel yet. I'd never heard the name before, but I put my earbuds in and queued up This Side Of Dirt, and headed out to shovel snow for an hour or so.

I suppose that Clifford Dinsmore from Bl'ast would be the big "ex-member of" draw here, but holy shit, this is so good. As soon as the first guitar riff from Plastic People started to penetrate my ears, I had the biggest smile on my face, and didn't care that I was outside in freezing temperatures moving snow that was already a foot deep. Blending stoner rock, doom and an undercurrent of punk, I loved what I heard and immediately ordered a copy.

This red, yellow and purple blended colored vinyl is limited to only 100.

Psalms Of Brat

Last year I discovered Disembodied, and very quickly became obsessed with the band. I'd ignored them back in the 90's, but on a whim I decided to check them out last year and it was exactly what I needed. Both If God Only Knew and Psalms Of Sheol immediately took over my life, and Disembodied were easly my favorite discovery that year. That obsession hasn't let up in 2026. I started listening to their Diablerie album earlier this year, and I've been desperate to get my hands on the white vinyl version for it... and then along came the Psalms Of Sheol reissue which I apparently needed as well.

I have a few friends that really like Charli XCX, and for a time in 2024 our group chat was full of comments on her new album at the time, Brat. While I was able to enjoy stuff like Lana Del Rey and Lorde, I never really had that same kind of attraction to Charli XCX... well her song Guess was a lot of fun, but I didn't really spend any time with Brat.

While I was still riding my Disembodied obsession, Marcus sent me a message about a new pressing for the Psalms Of Sheol, and the test pressing that pays tribute to Brat. I immediately wanted it. The Brat design is iconic and since Disembodied have done a few of these kinds of rip off sleeves in the past, it was a great choice here... and personally, owning it felt like a good tribute to my Brat friends that know nothing about Disembodied.

After Marcus let me know that this test press existed, I just kept thinking about how nice it would be to own one... and since the label didn't seem to be announcing anything about selling them, I finally just sent Prime Directive an email asking about it. To my surprise, the guy wrote me right back and said that he would check to see if he had an extra. A week later he got back to me, letting me know that he did have one and he gave me a price. Without hesitation I sent the money. I have no idea how many were made of this test, but I am so grateful that I had the opportunity to own one.

I'm not sure if I would have ended up buying the Psalms of Sheol reissue, but since I owned the test press, it felt like a logical move.

The new cover design for the reissue looks cool, and it was only available on this splatter colored vinyl... which at least matches well. 200 pressed.

Things snowballed from there, and since I was buying the new reissue for the LP, it only made sense for me to pick up an original pressing off Discogs.

Three copies of Psalms Of Sheol picked up within a three week span, and there are still other versions that I would have grabbed if they were available.

Orange vinyl was limited to 333.

The Purple Dawn

I never really paid too much attention to The Suicide File back in the mid 2000's. Those were weird times for me with hardcore and I was pretty disconnected from what was happening... so The Suicide File was one in a long list of bands that I never spent much time with. A few years ago I really sat up and started paying attention to some of those bands, and had a stretch where I was obsessed and spinning The Suicide File on repeat. I was looking for colored vinyl from the band, but for one reason or another it was proving more difficult that I expected and I ended up empty handed.

After adding some records to my cart over on Discogs, I started to browse to see if the seller had anything else that caught my eye. As soon as I saw this Suicide File 7 inch, I was excited to finally grab this. I still haven't bothered with the full length album, but these early songs from The Suicide File are so fucking good. One of the best records from 2002.

380 pressed on purple vinyl.

RTA LI

When record labels started pressing stupid amounts of colored vinyl options... frustrating me to the point of giving up collecting multiple versions... Rule Them All were one of the bands that snapped me out of that mindset and had me chasing multiple copies again. I loved the band that much and it brought that collector spirit back a little bit.

With their first 12 inch, An Alignment Of Polarity, I didn't think that I'd make much progress on that collection. The record was only pressed on black vinyl, but it did see a couple of limited covers made in small numbers, so I figured that my chances were small in getting my hands on them.

Last year I was surprised to have the opportunity to pick up the Silent Majority ripoff cover from a Discogs seller, and as I was writing the blog post back in January, I decided to see if anything else had popped up there. I was happy to find someone looking to sell the limited Long Island map cover, and I quickly added it to my cart.

Discogs doesn't have much info on this one... it just lists it as "300 copies pressed", so I was happy to find that it was numbered out of 50. I wonder if I'll have any luck finding a test press for this one and completing the collection.

90 MPH Ordination

I love that 90's hardcore/emo shit so much. I know that my love for 90's hardcore punk covers a lot of ground, but let me live in that sweet spot of Ebullition style with bands like Mohinder, Plunger, Moss Icon and Shotmaker because that style never gets old for me. That sound seems to only live in that timeframe, and I don't know if it could successfully be replicated today. Prove me wrong... please. But one of the bands that I loved from the mid-90's time period was Ordination Of Aaron.

Ordination Of Aaron came out strong around 1994 with a 7 inch, a split with Indian Summer, and some amazing songs that ended up on a few compilations, and I loved that shit so much. For one reason or another I wasn't able to pick up their LP, Immersion In A 90 MPH World, when it was released the following year. By the time 1996 rolled around and I picked up the discography CD, and I heard those LP songs for the first time, I was disappointed. They didn't really move me like I'd hoped they would... plus the youth crew revival was starting to take off at the time, and so I didn't spend much time with those songs and I quickly moved on to chase high fives and stage dives.

At some point last year, I decided to revisit the songs from that Ordination Of Aaron album (it was the 30th year of its release after all, so I was motivated) and I was surprised with how much I loved what I heard. Damn. This is that classic 90's emo stuff that I love. I had those songs on repeat, and early into 2026 when a US seller finally had a copy of the record available, I jumped on it.

Bitter Animals

I'm continually surprised with how many records Tim Singer is turning out these days. Between the new No Escape a few years ago, a new Deadguy album last year, and Bitter Branches... it seems like there is always something new from that guy.

Still, I was shocked to see preorders go up for a new Bitter Branches record from Equal Vision this year. Your Neighbors Are Failures was one of my favorite new releases back in 2022... it surprised me with how good it was... so yeah, I jumped on the preorder for their newest, Let's Give The Land Back To The Animals.

This new Bitter Branches record hits just as hard as the last one. There is so much rage in the delivery of these songs that it feels like it could boil over at any second... and this fits my mood lately, so I've been spinning this record a lot. "But I'm the weird one. I'm obscene. Why are you not screaming?"

Great gatefold packaging. 150 pressed on clear and red ripple colored vinyl.

William, It Was Really Nothing

Going through Tim's collection early on, he had a copy of Hatful Of Sorrow from The Smiths available. It was a version that had a misprinted cover that was missing the black dot separating two song titles on the back cover. I can't even remember what Jeff had priced it at, but at the time I felt that I didn't need to pay an inflated price because of a missing dot, and I let it pass me by. I was buying Louder Than Bombs from his collection, so I should be content with that, right? Wrong. I regretted not just putting up the money and buying Hatful Of Sorrow too, and earlier this year I was sharing those thoughts with Jeff. Much to my surprise, he reached into a stack of records and said that he had an extra in his collection and that I could take it for free. Good deal!

It still shocks me how much I love The Smiths these days, and this collection of singles, b-sides and other recording sessions is so good. Also, I love the way this package looks with the blue cover, lyric sheet and record labels.

So now the only two records I own for The Smiths are compilations. That's cool, but man, I'd really like to track down UK copies of Meat Is Murder and The Queen Is Dead soon.

30 Years Of Absinthe

I'm big on celebrating anniversaries. What was I listening to twenty years ago.... forty years ago? Hell, I'm keeping a list over on Letterboxd to watch and rank all the horror movies that I can from 1976 for a fifty year anniversary challenge. So yeah, I'm always interested in that stuff. I'd already done a couple of posts for the blog's 20th anniversary, so I've been in a celebrating mood... and as soon as we rolled into 2026, I started digging into my 1996 playlist to see what I was listening to 30 years ago.

At the start of my 1996 playlist was the Absinthe EP. I always loved Groundwork, and while Absinthe features a couple of key players from that band, I never really latched on to them the same way. Absinthe seemed a bit more harsh and chaotic compared to Groundwork, and I wasn't too interested back in the day. Seeing how much I fell in love with stuff like Disembodied last year, I approached this record with that mindset and found that I really loved what I was hearing. This thing got multiple repeat plays early this year, and I've listened to these songs more than I have over the 30 years that I've owned the 10 inch.

So yeah, while I do still own the 10 inch that I orginally bought for this record around 1996, it was the black vinyl version. Seeing how much I was listening to this, I couldn't help but feel the itch to pick up the colored vinyl version for it as well.

Free And Pink

I love some late 60's and 70's rock, but in recent years I've found that I don't reach for it nearly as much as I once did. My brain wants more aggresive shit these past few years. However, one cold and snowy weekend at the start of this year, I wanted to pull some of those old albums off the shelf, and stuff like Cream and early Bob Seger had me back in that frame of mind. At some point over the following weeks, I dove into the band Free on Spotify and I was surprised to find that I started obsessing over their self titled album.

The song Lying In The Sunshine had a chokehold on me and I couldn't get enough. It has such a lazy carefee summer vibe and it contrasted nicely with the harsh snowy January weather. I just kept returning to that album and I was surprised with how obsessed with it I had become. I needed the record in my collection and because I was listening to it so much, my brain thought that it would be very cool to pick up an original UK pink label Island pressing from 1969.

I really wanted this record, and I know how fickle my tastes can be, so I knew that if I didn't pull the trigger at the peak of this obsession I'd soon move on and forget about it... then a couple of years from now I'd find myself wishing that I'd struck while the iron was hot. Not wanting to regret letting it pass me by, I found one and jumped on it... making it my second $100 record purchase of 2026, and we were only two weeks into the year.

Most People Are Dicks

Another record from Tim's collection that I wasn't really sure if I wanted it when I saw it. I've been familiar with Ludichrist since the late 80's, but never really latched on to them. For the most part, I felt like they were trying to be funny... and that kind of thing tends to get old really fast with me... so I never really spent much time with them. I saw Immaculate Deception available from Tim's collection, with those Combat Core labels, and I figured that I'd give Ludichrist another chance.

This album was more enjoyable than I remembered. Sure there is the goofy shit like Green Eggs And Ham or the goofy cover of Last Train To Clarksville... plus songs that are kind of gimmicky like Most People Are Dicks and Down With The Ship (which they lean into quite a bit more with Ludichrist's This Party Sucks and when Scatterbrain revived Down With The Ship and made it a hit)... but I guess that I never really was aware of the New York Hardcore connections here with Chuck Valle on bass, and guest appearances by dudes from Agnostic Front and Leeway (and cool to see guys from Nuclear Assault and Crumbsuckers show up here as well). So, yeah, this album was surprisingly good.

Happy to kind of discover this old school crossover record and get it into the collection.

Caroline Quickness

I didn't bother checking out the Quickness album from Bad Brains until last year... 36 years after its release. The Punk Note edition of those Bad Brains records looked so good that it pushed me to finally listen to Quickness, with hopes that I'd like it and I could buy another one of those great looking covers. The marketing scheme worked, and I ended up grabbing one.

I was thinking that the Punk Note pressing was probably all that I needed for Quickness. It looked great, and the version of Don't Blow Bubbles was made into an instrumental, so I was all set with only having that version, right? Wrong. As soon as I pulled the record from the sleeve and saw those Caroline labels, I needed to have it. You can blame We're Not In This Alone... I think that was my exposure to those Caroline labels, and seeing them here, I was like yes give me more of that.

You'll still find me reaching for Rock For Light and I Against I 9 times out of 10, but Quickness is still a fun listen.

Ticket To Whiplash

Prior to this month, all of my posts this year have been for records that I picked up in 2025. Moving into May, it is nice to finally start writing about records that I've bought this year. I've bought 46 records so far in 2026, so I'm obviously still working with a large backlog. It would be nice to just rip through a bunch of posts to make this blog a bit more current, but I keep struggling to find the time. Who knows, maybe I can start to get things under control this month.

Dipping back into those records from Tim's collection, it was nice to pull some more thrash. Whiplash's second record, Ticket To Mayhem, was released near the height of thrash's popularity in 1987 and it just rips with an absolute metal fury. I love how raw and unhinged this album sounds... a voice that sounds shredded and guitars at 100 mph... man, it's so good.

I always found it cool that the bassist for Whiplash, Tony Bono, ended up in Into Another... so as I was leaving metal behind in the early 90's, it was funny to me that suddenly there was a new band with ex members of Underdog, Bold and Whiplash. Seemed like a such a strange mix.

No Tears In Effect

In my early days of collecting records, I picked up a copy of Sick Of It All's Blood Sweat And No Tears back in 2005, before I started this blog. It was a red vinyl reissue out of Germany, and I was pretty excited to pick it up at that time. Sure it looked nice, but it always ate at me that I didn't have an original pressing of the album. At the start of this year, when I got the latest update of what was available from Tim's collection, I was very excited to see that SOIA album in there.

Blood, Sweat And No Tears was one of the first true hardcore albums that I picked up back in the day. Sure I'd stumbled upon stuff like Black Flag, Minor Threat and Misfits as a young metalhead, but stuff like that first Sick Of It All record, Agnostic Front's Liberty And Justice For, and Killing Time's Brightside really helped to open my eyes and start to shift my musical focus at the end of the 80's.

As a huge influence as that Sick Of It All album was on me, I'm glad to finally have an original In-Effect pressing on my shelf.

Dedicated To Murder Anthems

To be honest, I'm not even sure where I picked up this record. I know that it was included for free in a package I'd received at some point, but I wasn't really interested in it when it arrived, and I just tossed into the "junk to deal with later" pile, so therefore I didn't really register where it came from.

I remember picking up the CD for The Dedication's Youth Murder Anthems back when it was released in 2002, but like I'd mentioned in my Frostbite post at the start of this month, it was a weird time for me with hardcore. I didn't spend much time with it at the time, and it has literally been 20 years since I'd last listened to those songs. When the record arrived, I was tempted to just throw the damn thing away... but that Frostbite post awakened something in me, and I've been listening to a lot of early 2000's hardcore that I don't really spend much time with these days. With that mindset, I figured that I'd give this record from The Dedication a quick spin before I wrote it off completely.

Yeah, this record from The Dedication definitely fits that vibe I've been riding this month. Early 2000's hardcore has a sound, and this is it. I'm really glad to have this one in the collection (especially since it appears that I got rid of the CD at some point), but I'm content with just the clear vinyl pressing and I'm not going to be rushing out to buy other versions of this... for now.

Why So Serious?

When I Rise released their album back in 2008, I was a bit underwhelmed with it. Their 7 inch was insanely good... same with the songs on the split with Soul Control... but the For Redemption record just felt like it was missing something. In the years since its release, I really haven't spent much time with the album. In fact, I even sold one of the two copies of the record that I'd intially bought... and as someone that rarely gets rid of anything, that really speaks to how indifferent I was feeling toward For Redemption. When I was picking up a Spiritual Cramp 7 inch from a Discogs seller recently, I decided to check to see what else they had for sale. I saw that they had I Rise album with the special Sound & Fury cover for around $10, and I thought that maybe I should check it out and see how I felt about it 18(!) years later.

Look, the For Redemption album isn't going to compete with the earlier I Rise stuff, but sitting here in 2026, these songs are hitting me pretty hard. Since I decided to revisit these songs, they have been getting repeat time in my daily playlist, so I was very happy to grab this limited cover.

Handnumbered out of 100 made for S&F, with the George Bush/Joker "Why So Serious?" cover, and spraypainted dust jacket. Someone went really hard with that spraypaint though, as you can see some of the residue blasted through the dustjacket and left a mark on the actual vinyl.

Phone Lines Down

I've loved Spiritual Cramp since discovering their self titled album in early 2024, and have had periods where I've obsessively wanted to collect some of their records. The problem has been that their stuff isn't always easily available. They have a few 7 inches that I'd love to get my hands on, but they don't seem to pop up often, so I've been stuck playing the waiting game.

As I was writing up a post for the new Spiritual Cramp album at the end of last year, I decided to quickly check Discogs to see if anything was available to pick up. I was happy to find that someone was selling a copy of the Phone Lines Down 7 inch, and I immediately added it to my cart. Look, I wasn't thrilled with the $25 pricetag I paid for this record, but seeing how there is only one copy available on Discogs now, and it is listed at $80... I guess I won't complain. Sellers get stupid when a band starts to get popular.

These two songs are exactly what I love about Spiritual Cramp... catchy, melodic and still delivering plenty of attitude. So good.

Chopping Block Blues

I'm always down to check out a new hardcore band, so when Ralf posted about Chopping Block at the end of last year... mentioning references to mid-2000's greats like Lights Out and Desperate Measures... I quickly pulled up their songs to give them a listen.

Yeah, this is exactly what I want from a newer hardcore band... to sound like older hardcore bands. I get the mid-2000's influence here, but to me they really remind me of Berthold City with the vocal delivery. This band was a great discovery, and one that I probably wouldn't have made if Ralf hadn't posted about it... so I really appreciate finds like this and the influence record collecting blogs can still have on me.

Only 50 pressed on red colored vinyl.

Bloodied But D.O.A.

When I saw the D.O.A. collection, Bloodied But Unbowed, in Tim's collection, I wasn't sure if I really needed it. It is kind of a "best of D.O.A." record, and at some point I think that I'd like to eventually own their first couple of albums... so if I do that, this collection feels unnecessary. Still, I owned the Bloodied But Unbowed CD as a kid, and seeing the front cover artwork on the full 12 by 12 LP sleeve was too good to pass up.

Bloodied But Unbowed contains 19 songs... 10 songs that were on their first album, Something Better Change, 7 tracks from Hardcore 81, and a couple more songs from their singles thrown in for good measure. Every song here feels like a punk classic... so catchy and packed with attitude.

So while not really necessary, I'm still happy to own a copy of this.

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.