Wild Life / Survival

Powered Records is on a roll...following up their Not Afraid pre-orders with two new 7 inches. For a label that disappeared for a few years, it is cool to have them back in action.

Sometimes I buy shit that I'm not really that interested in. I buy it out of some weird kind of obligation. Seriously, most of the stuff I want, falls in the realm of Metal or Rock. I still love Hardcore, and there have been some gems that have been released this year, but I've been finding that it has been a bit of a struggle to get me excited about new stuff.

When Powered put up pre-orders over the summer, for the new Survival and Wild Life records, I really wanted to ignore it and put the money towards something more exciting. But 10 years of record collecting habit is hard to break. Powered is a solid Hardcore record label, and I generally enjoy everything they release, so I sucked it up and placed an order anyway.

When the records first arrived, I tossed them into the pile of new shit that I've received. Meh...no surprise, but I was not in the mood to check them out. The time came this week, when I'd worked through my vinyl backlog, and I couldn't avoid it any longer...it was time to finally write about them. Suddenly, it felt like a like from that Circle Jerks song, Defamation Innuendo.

Hell, I never heard 'em and now I've gotta write about 'em
God, the story is due, the story's due tomorrow
What should I write? Well, they're no good

Thankfully, it didn't play out like that at all. First up, I drop the needle on the new Survival record. Even though I'd spent the day listening to Testament, Exodus, and Dio, the songs on this nine minute record are like a strong kick to the jaw. Man, even in this Metal state of mind, I can't help but recognize how good this is. Straight forward Hardcore.

Limited to 150, and hand numbered for Powered preorders.

Survival helped to whet the appetite, and things roll nicely as I moved on to check out the Wild Life 7 inch next. This one taking swings at more of a New York Hardcore sound. Goddamn, I'm really glad that I didn't turn my back on these two solid releases.

Wild Life preorders were limited to 75 on orange vinyl. Typically, Powered places the preorder sticker on the dust sleeve, but in this case they stuck it on the inside of the fold out cover. Odd...maybe they ran out of dust sleeves.

While placing my order for these two 7 inches, I figured that it was also a good time to grab the blue vinyl pressing for the Caught In A Crowd 12 inch.

React! And Powered Extras

With my recent Not Afraid orders from React! and Powered, I took the opportunity to grab a couple additional records that I've had my eye on.

First up is the Double Vision LP from ON. This was released back in 2009, and Powered had so many issues getting their shit together to mail this out, kids were nailing them to the wall left and right. Here we are, five years later, and the label seems to be getting it's feet back under itself. The Powered store lists a copy of the Double Vision LP on white vinyl, and I figured that I'd finally grab a copy. Ugh...nice job...this isn't white vinyl.

While it wasn't white vinyl, it did still put me at nine copies of this LP. Might as well take a group photo!

From the React! distro, I ordered the Appraise 7 inch. I'd heard good things about them, so I figured that I'd check 'em out. This is the vinyl pressing of their 2012 demo...pretty solid hardcore out of Spain.

Second pressing. Limited to 300.

No Fear

Has it really been three years since Not Afraid released their debut 7 inch? Still stinging from the True Colors break up, Not Afraid stepped in and filled that hole without missing a beat. I remember being out of town when Back To Back put up the preorders for that first record, and feeling the kick in the gut as I ended up missing out on the limited pressings. With the release of the full length LP, I wasn't going down that same road. As soon as preorders went up, I was all up in the internet, making sure that I got all of the available pressings.

Locked Out is a split label release, with the dudes over at Powered taking care of things overseas.

250 pressed on blue vinyl that was exclusive to Powered. Half of them were hand numbered with the Powered preorder sticker.

Over here in the States, Ev and the React! crew take care of the North American pressing. Orange colored vinyl is exclusive to React!, and is limited to 250.

I was really looking forward to this album, and while it is still a solid release, I'm left feeling a bit underwhelmed. I think a major reason for this is that it sounds like it was recorded in a cave...everything feels claustrophobic and muddy. Where are the guitars? It is too bad because the songs are there, and can stand up next to their excellent debut, but I just wish that it didn't sound like I had cotton in my ears whenever I listen to it. Maybe I just need a few more spins to grow accustomed to that production.

500 pressed on black vinyl.

Caught In A Euro Crowd

It has been a long time since we've seen a release from Powered. In fact I haven't ordered anything from them since The Great ON Delay of 2009. The label seems to have revived itself, so I figured that I'd take a chance with preorders for the new Caught In A Crowd compilation LP.

It seems like more and more bands are releasing a couple of 7 inches, and then collecting those songs and pressing them to 12 inch vinyl. With a Euro tour planned, CIAC jump on the bandwagon, and Powered pressed some new vinyl for the band to sell while on the road. I really like the clean, crisp design, but it feels somewhat familiar.

Looks like I got number "W" out of 100.

Preorders for the Caught In A Crowd vinyl came with Powered Fanzine number 5, featuring interviews with CIAC, Ev from REACT!, and an old one with Dag Nasty. Great job all around. Solid looking package.

Love the personal touch with the fanzine...even though I couldn't give a shit about soccer or football.

Powered By Judah and Justice

Since I've been doing this blog, I find that every once in a while, someone will reach out to me with an offer to buy some of their records. Chances are, they read one of my posts, and will fire off an email looking to sell a record or two and help build my collection. I don't know why, but I very rarely take people up on these offers. When I received and email from Geert, who used to help run Powered Records, the offer was too good to walk away from.

With Geert's first email, he offered a couple different variations on the Euro tour press for the Lion Of Judah album that I posted about back in July. I had the green cover, but apparently the tour press was also available with red and yellow covers as well. Geert's price was very reasonable, and less than what I'd paid for the green cover, so I took the opportunity to buy the LP with the red cover. While the tour press was limited to 300, it would seem that the red, green and yellow covers are limited to 100 each.

Knowing that I was looking to build my LOJ collection, Geert also offered me a Powered pre-order copy of the Universal Peace LP.

Splatter colored vinyl rarely looks good. Just don't do it.

Number 3 of 75 for pre-orders.

As a bonus record, Geert also threw in what looked like a test press for the Lion Of Judah LP. No cover, white labels...yeah, it looked like a test to me. Turns out it was left over vinyl from the tour pressing. After doing the 300 tour covers, there were a few pieces of vinyl left over that Powered didn't do any thing with. Now I've got a copy on my shelf. Very nice.

While exchanging emails, I also mentioned that I couldn't get enough of Justice right now, and if he had any extra vinyl hanging around for the Powered releases, I'd gladly take them.

This was my first Powered pressing of the Escapades LP, and I was really impressed with the thick lyric booklet that they did for this. Geert listed this one as clear blue vinyl, which was limited to 250. I'm assuming that all the clear blue vinyl had this marbled pressing, but I'm loving the colors on this copy.

Escapades was a split release with Powered and Reflections Records. Of course this copy was from Powered, so it had the Powered stamp on the dust sleeve.

In addition to the Escapades LP, I also grabbed a copy of the Live and Learn 12 inch EP. Uggg...more splatter vinyl. Gross. This one is from the regular press, so there is no pre-order stamp. Limited to 240.

More emails were exchanged, and my total continued to grow. This time it was for the Loud and Clear LP. I love this record, and when Geert offered up a clear vinyl pressing, I just couldn't say no.

Limited to 100 on clear vinyl.

These were all pressed for the Light The Fuse fest. Hand stamped and numbered dust sleeves. I do love those low numbers.

Geert now runs Control Records, and as if I hadn't already spent enough money, I decided to also pick up the second pressing of the Tremors 7 inch that Control had stocked in their webstore. The second pressing comes with a new cover and is limited to 150 copies.

This 7 inch is brutal. Full of distortion and anger. Since the Euro press has one song that was left off the US pressing, I'm glad to own a copy of this.

There it all is. What stemmed from an offer for a couple of Lion of Judah records quickly grew. It was more money than I should have spent, but I was glad for the opportunity to fill some holes in the collection. Thanks, Geert.

LOJ European Tour 2006

Has it really been almost 6 years since Lion of Judah released their Universal Peace LP? Wow, I've been doing this blog for a long time.

A month or so back, I was obsessing over Lion of Judah vinyl. My LOJ collection is pretty small, with only 4 pieces of vinyl, and because I was listening to them a lot at the time, I was looking to expand. A quick eBay search turned up this Euro tour pressing. Now, I've never really paid a lot of attention to Lion of Judah vinyl...Hell, I didn't even remember that Powered did a pressing of this album...but this was the first time that I seen this limited tour cover. I'm a sucker for this kind of thing, an therefore I desperately wanted it.

I really like the look and feel of this special cover and lyric sheet. Limited to 300.

Losing Power

In addition to the REACT! and Reaper Records pressings, Powered Records did the Euro pressing of the Double Vision album from ON. I love how Powered uses a different color on the album cover to really differentiate between the Euro and US pressings. They have done this in the past when working with Six Feet Under Records on the True Colors stuff, and it adds a nice touch with the Double Vision LP as well.

Powered pressed 200 pieces of red vinyl. 150 of them were used for the pre-order, which were stamped and numbered on the lyric sheet/dust sleeve. Number 78 of 150.

Pre-orders for all three record labels went up in June. I think there were some delays in getting these out, but even while Powered posted that the records were going to start shipping at the end of October, I didn't get mine until the end of December. 6 months is a long wait for a pre-order. It seems like this release really took it's toll on the Powered guys, as they included a note apologizing for the delay and stating they will be taking a little break from putting out records.