This Is UKHC

Another record that I've had in my hands for a while now, but have been slow to blog about is the latest Unified Action 7 inch, This Is A War. The delay in posting this record is due to my own stubbornness. See, I want to listen to a record a few times before I post about it, but since the vinyl didn't come with a download code, I couldn't find the songs on soulseek, and they aren't available on Spotify... I simply hadn't listened to it. I mean, what am I supposed to do, actually use my turntable? Gasp! The horror and inconvenience! Thankfully, after struggling for months to get my hands on the digital files for these songs, I was finally able to solve that problem... so here we are.

Unified Action knows what they want to do. They aren't going to fuck around with cool and trendy hardcore styles. They are here to just pummel you from start to finish with harsh and angry early 80's inspired hardcore. Oh you like Negative Approach? Get this record and find out.

I'm really glad to have this record. I know that the band went through some trouble getting it released as the original label seemed to flake on them after the initial preorders went up. Can't be an easy thing for a band to jump on to social media and tell everyone to cancel their orders, and then quickly try to find someone else to get the record pressed. Bad experience for the band, but hopefully it didn't cause too much disruption and people check this record out because it rages.

Unified UKHC

It is probably going back 15 years now, but there was a time when record collecting blogs were strong. There were a group of us logging in and writing some words next to pictures for the latest records that we had picked up. There were a small group of people that I met through that nerdy blogger world... and while a number of them fell out of my world once they stopped posting, there were a few of them that I still call friends to this day. I wish that they were all still doing this pointless exercise, as it was a way to feel a kind of constant connection to friends by checking in and commenting on their posts. I really miss those days. Either way, I will always give those old friends my attention when they do some new project, and when Lins from the old Never Ending Game blog, got a new band up and running, I was on board to check them out.

Lins does not fuck around with his hardcore, so you know that whatever he is involved with is going to be straight forward and pissed off. In his world of musical influence, bands like Turnstile do not exist, and each song from Unified Action is a short burst of anger... a statement that early 80's hardcore will not be forgotten.

Like a total plum, when the vinyl version for the Unified Action demo became available, I ordered two copies by mistake. I bought one as soon as they were made available, and then forgot about it in the whirlwind of other records that I was buying. A few weeks later, I saw some post from the label about the record and in a panic to not miss out on the clear vinyl version, I jumped online and bought one... again. Honestly, these past few years has seen my brain turn to mush. So, now I have two copies of this thing.

Unified Action played a record release show earlier this year, and made a very limited amount of special covers for it. I decided I wanted one, so did what any record nerd would do - I hoped on a plane and flew to the UK, and then I jumped in a car with Marcus to drive 308 miles to Newcastle to attend the show.*

* Sadly, the last bit of the above is not true. I mean, the bit about me flying the UK to see Marcus definitely is, but the bit about us driving to the show is definitely not. I was fortunate enough to buy one of the leftover copies of this one, but I was a few months late on my trip to the UK for the show. All that I had to do was walk through the front door at Marcus's place to get my record. Number 15 of 15 is a good one to get. Thanks Lins!