Monument To Nothing

I've been struggling lately to find the time to keep this blog up to date. I've been training to run a 100 mile race in May, and the training lately has been sucking up all of my free time. This is easily the biggest (and dumbest) thing that I'm attempting to run, and I'm fucking overwhelmed by the thought of it, so I've been spending most of my free time on the weekends putting up miles on the road so that I can go into this race feeling like I've done all that I could to prepare. Earlier this year, I was starting to get a little worried that I was going to completely catch up on this blog and have zero records to write about, but then my production here has dropped way off and now I have about 25 records backlogged and waiting for me to write about. Let's try and get this blog back on track.

One of my favorite old school metal records that I picked up last year was the debut from Hallows Eve, Tales Of Terror. I love that record so fucking much, but I also enjoy all of the Hallows Eve records from the 80's, so when I was picking up some other records from a Discogs seller, and saw that they had the Monument album available, I was happy to grab that as well.

The Monument album from 1988 doesn't seem to get the same amount of attention that Tales Of Terror and Death And Insanity recieve, but man, this record is still fun to thrash along to...even the Queen cover song hits pretty hard.

The only problem that I have with this record is that the post office dropped the box off on my steps... in the rain... and I didn't notice it for hours. Water definitely seeped into the package, and while the other records were safe in their plastic sleeves, this Hallows Eve album got hit with some damage along the bottom of the sleeve. Fuck.

Tales Of Hallows Eve

I've obsessed over those mid-80's Metal Blade albums since I was a kid and studying thier ads in the metal mags that I was buying at the time. Even to this day, there are some of those records that I have still never heard, and they have almost taken upon a mythical status in my mind. At this point the legend of bands like Predator, Bloodlust and Savage Grace has grown so much in my imagination, it almost feels like I would ruin it by actually listening to their records. Part of the reason for the high expectations is because of bands like Hallows Eve.

I had the Tales Of Terror cassette from Hallows Eve as a kid, and I absolutely loved that thing. Songs like Metal Merchants were as much of an anthem to me at that time as anything from Maiden or Priest. Even today, I break out that album for a spin a couple times a year, but last year I could not get enough of it. I listened to that thing repeatedly throughout 2020 and I was itching to finally grab a copy on vinyl. The record doesn't come cheap and looking for one in mint condition only increased the difficulty of the hunt. As I was obsessing over the album again recently, I decided to finally stop dicking about and just buy the fucking thing. I found a great looking copy on Discogs and just pulled the trigger.

Man, this thing is absolutely killer. The condition is top notch, and it is one of my favorite underground metal albums ever. Very happy to finally have a copy in the collection.