Ritual On A Chain

Another year, another Planet On A Chain record. Honestly, I'm surprised at how much this band has released. Three albums over three years, plus a couple of 7 inches before that. It's impressive for a hardcore band.

Ritual Routine keeps doing what POAC does best... unrelenting fast hardcore. I don't think that they really do anything new here, and that's cool with me. While all of their records kind of feel the same and interchangable, there was something about their last one, Culture Of Death, that I really enjoyed more than others... and for me, this new one falls a bit short. Maybe I just need to sit with it a bit more... or maybe there was just something with Culture Of Death that clicked with me more. Who knows... but either way POAC keeps doing what you'd expect POAC to do, and that album cover art is rad as fuck.

330 pressed on yellow colored vinyl.

Chain Of Death

Last year, I was excitd to check out the new album from the band Planet On A Chain. The singer had been in Tear It Up and Dead Nation, and since I love both of those bands, so I had high hopes for POAC... however, even though I liked the record, it didn't end up exciting me as much as I thought it would. Still, when preorders went up at Revelation for the follow up album, Culture Of Death, I still quickly grabbed one.

I'm not sure what it is, but this POAC record is hitting me harder than the last one. I hadn't listened to it until I started to write up this blog post, but it had an immediate impact on me, and I was looking forward to giving it another spin. Maybe it's my mindset, and my ears want to hear something hard and fast like this right now, but Culture Of Death has me hooked from the start and I want more of it.

While the Boxed In record had a straight forward hardcore look, Culture Of Death goes for something a bit different. From the death metal font, to King Kong ripping the roof off the building, and the black, magenta and yellow colorway on the cover... this record has more of a creative look... and while I really liked the front cover for Boxed In, I'm digging the different look for this one as well. 330 pressed on a color vinyl that makes a nice attempt to match the cover.

Fucking Assholes Don't Get It

While on holiday in the UK this past summer, we took the opportunity to fly over and spend a couple of days in Paris with Marcus and Anna. Soon after we had landed at the Charles de Gaulle Airport, Marcus gave me a heads up that there was a special edition of the new Planet On A Chain LP that was available. There were only 50 made with a special screen printed cover, so as soon as we got to our hotel for the night, I was on the wifi and ordering myself a copy. Shortly after arriving back home in the States, the record landed in my mailbox like a hardcore souvenir of my trip overseas.

Apparently the guys from Armageddon and Drop Dead are long time friends with the guys in POAC and wanted to make a special edition cover for their newest album, Boxed In. Named the Fucking Assholes edition from the Drop Dead song of the same name, the packaging on this looks hardcore as fuck. Bad ass looking cover screen printed on a heavy black card stock that folds around the original sleeve.

The website states that there are only 50 of these, so why does it look like there are still some available months later?

Planet On A Chain

One of the first new records that I ordered this year was the new Planet On A Chain album. With Dave from Tear It Up and Dead Nation on vocals, I was pretty excited to check this record out... plus it was being released on Revelation, so I definitely needed to rush to buy a copy.

Planet On A Chain play straight forward hardcore, and by all rights I should be all over this, but for some reason it is falling a little flat for me. Don't get me wrong, it is good, but I guess I wanted more. I thought there would be killer hooks here that would grab ahold of me immediately, but after a few listens nothing has jumped out at me. Of course, it could just be that I need to give it more time to sink in. I mean, I wasn't that excited about that Big Cheese album a few years ago, but I've really come around on that one lately. Who knows? Check in at the end of the year and see if this one was a slow burn.

200 pressed on blue and exclusive to the REVHQ store.