Misdirection Of Things To Come

I'm usually very careful when I order through Discogs, and I typically will only buy a record if the sleeve condition is rated higher than Very Good. Ring wear, crushed corners and beat up sleeves are a major turn off, and I usually pay very close attention to those things when I'm buying from a seller. For some reason I was asleep at the wheel when I ordered this Ensign album.

I was buying a bunch of records from a Discogs seller, and they were having a small sale in their store. I got so caught up in the text mentioning the sale as I blindly added records to my cart. Somehow I completely missed that the condition was listed as Very Good for this sleeve (and it isn't even that), and I didn't even see that the seller pointed out that the "sleeve has some edge wear and a corner crease". I'm completely dumbfounded at how blind I was when ordering this. That edge wear on the corner is inexcusable, so I'm going to need to fix this with a better sleeve at some point.

Regardless of how disappointed I am over the wear on the cover, this is still a great album that I'm happy to add to the collection. Ensign seemed like such a huge band at the time when they released this album in '97. I don't know how kind hardcore history has been to their legacy, but they were pretty fucking important back in the day.

Armageddon Seven Inches Pt. 3 - Death By Ensign

Back in 2000, Indecision Records released a series of split 7 inches. It was really rare for me to buy records at that time, and I had been more focused on the convenience of CDs since around '95, so I didn't bother with a lot of vinyl only releases...although I did pick up the Voorhees / Kill Your Idols split from this series at the time, but honestly, that was probably one of the last records I bought for years.

Indecision did collect all the tracks from the split series and released them on one CD the following year, so I was able to hear the songs there, but seeing the Death By Stereo / Ensign split at Armageddon I finally picked up the original vinyl pressing twenty years after it's release. While I would have preferred to pick up the colored vinyl pressing, truth be told, I was just happy to grab a copy of the record for cheap.

Death By Stereo and Ensign were huge bands for me at the time, and the songs from this split are still a lot of fun to listen to.

Stuck in '96: Part 6 - Ensign

The final piece in my 1996 spending spree.

When I started this obsession, I was surprised at how many pieces of vinyl I didn't own for this time period. For the most part, if it was released on CD, that was my format of choice. So on my mission to right past wrongs, I expected to sweep through eBay and Discogs, and pull in a solid number of records. Much to my surprise, I found that people seemed to be holding on tight to their vinyl, and I ended up adding more to my Discogs Want List than I actually purchased. In the end, all I had to show from my shopping spree was a handful of cheap 7 inch EPs.

Ensign were one of those bands that seemed huge back in 96/97. I remember seeing them at The Middle East in Boston, and everyone just went off for them. But some time around their second album, people just stopped giving a shit....or maybe it was just me. As time went on, I kinda stopped paying attention to Ensign, and I forgot how good they once were. Revisiting this first 7 inch was a great wake up call. Man, this thing is great.

I could have gone with the more limited pressing on grey vinyl, but the blue looked too good to pass up, so I went with that one.

449 pressed on blue.