Test Press Of Fire

I'm not a big fan of live recordings. Sure I'll break out Kiss Alive or Black Sabbath Live Evil every now and then, and I'll grab the occasional live bootleg for the historical documentation of what songs some of the big metal bands were playing at that point in their career, but for hardcore bands... kind of pointless. Is there a single live hardcore record that people listen to on a regular basis? Fuck. I was at the last Have Heart show, and still, I have no interest in listening to the live album from it.

So when I was obsessing over the early 2000's in recent years, and picked up a couple of Fields Of Fire records, I noticed that they also had a live 7 inch. Hard pass. Zero interest. But then when I was at Wanna Hear It with Sandwell, and I saw a test press of the live record in the rack... well, now you have my attention... and for $3, get in my collection.

Nice special cover as a tribute to Sounds Of Nature from Christ On Parade, and number 4 out of 20.

The Kids Can't Be Bought

Last year, as I was obsessing over early-2000's era hardcore, I ended up grabbing a 7 inch from Fields Of Fire. It was a lot of fun revisiting that record, and it got me looking to see what else the band had released on vinyl.

The Kids Can't Be Bought 7 inch was released in 2000, but I wasn't buying records at the time, so I didn't become familiar with Fields Of Fire until Phyte Records released the Keep It Alive CD the following year, and added these songs at the end of the tracklist. Unfortunately those songs for Keep It Alive were only released on CD, and I would assume that the chances of a vinyl pressing of those songs this late in the game are pretty slim. Either way, this is great punk influenced hardcore and I was excited to pick up another record from the band.

Discogs does not have an official entry for the blue vinyl pressing, so it was by chance that I noticed a seller with one available where they included "BLUE vinyl" in the comments for thier listing. I was happy to learn that there was a colored vinyl option and I quickly snatched it up.

Red Fields Of Fire

There is something about early 2000's era hardcore that has been attractive to me lately. I know that I'd pushed it aside and kind of looked down my nose at it, judging it as inferior for a lot of years. During those years, I thought it was okay, but I wasn't going to a lot of shows and I have this weird disconnected feeling about that time. There was some cool shit going on, but overall I just kind of shoved it aside and forgot about a lot of those bands for many years. I don't think that I'm alone here, as it seems like a lot of people kind of overlook that era... but going back and digging through those bands recently has me realizing just how much fun some of that shit was.

Fields Of Fire was a band out of Southern California in the early 2000's, and they played straight forward hardcore with a catchy injection of punk. I got turned on to the band because Phyte Records released their Keep It Alive CD, and since I was into what Phyte was doing at the time, I grabbed it. I thought it was cool, and grabbed the Kill The Flock CD when that was released the following year. It seems that no one is really interested in collecting the band in 2022, as I started to see what vinyl options were available and was able to pick up the Kill The Flock 7 inch for just under $3.

I've recently started listening to the 185 Miles South podcast, and while I'm not big on listening to podcasts, that one is definately a favorite. The Fields Of Fire singer, Ben Merlis, seems to be a part of the regular crew that talks hardcore on that pod, and it is cool to hear him occasionally drop some info or a story about this band, or his mid to late 2000's band, Bad Reaction. Just listening to that pod gets me fired up on all things hardcore.