Post-eBay Sale From React

Shortly after I bought the last set of records from Aram, he put up a bunch of stuff on eBay. Since it was well publicized, I figured that stuff was going to go for insane prices and I stayed away from placing any bids. A few weeks later, Aram was still unloading records, posting a list on the React messageboard with set prices. This time around, I filled a few more holes in my React collection.

I was also missing the ON and Gone But Not Forgotten custom REACT! cardboard mailers. I asked Aram if he had any leftover, I would appreciate if he could include them. Nice.

First thing that I grabbed was the Right Idea 12" on white vinyl. Limited to 300.


When I received my original Right Idea order from REACT!, I was lucky enough to receive one of the few transition presses, with the "Right Idea" stamp on the dust sleeve. As cool as it was to have one in my collection, and because I'm slightly mental, I still needed the regular white vinyl pressing.


Man, I love Mindset, so I was pretty happy to pick up a couple pieces of vinyl for the second pressing of their R E A L P O W E R 7 inch. Both of them are on clear vinyl, but for some reason, the pressing plant used the black and white labels from the first press on 30 of them. The remainder of the 150 pressed on clear vinyl have the red and black labels.

Yeah, Mindset are pretty awesome. I'm looking forward to the new 7 inch in 2010.

Pre-eBay Sale From React

It's about time that I got these records posted. I friggin' received them back at the beginning of November, and then they got buried in the stack of new vinyl. Bear with me, this is going to be a long post.

When I got my REACT! order for the new ON album, I was surprised to see that Marcus got a copy of the LP on blue vinyl. It is limited to 150 and I was pretty disappointed that I didn't get one. So disappointed in fact, that I let it be know in the comments for his post. That night, I got home from work and had an email from Aram waiting in my inbox. He had a copy that he was willing to part with, and said that if there was any other REACT! stuff that I was missing, then to just make an offer and he'd see if he could hook me up.

When Aram first told me that he had the blue vinyl for the ON LP available, I fired an offer to him. I was so excited to have the opportunity to get this pressing that my offer was a "little" high, and being the gentleman that he is, Aram countered my offer with a lower dollar amount. The blue vinyl pressing for this looks amazing next to the record cover.

I had seen some pictures that people had posted on the REACT! messageboard of the Gone But Not Forgotten 7 inch with an alternate cover. I asked Aram about it, and he said that they were copies for the band, and limited to 100. Word. I'll take one.

The next one that I was fucking stoked to pick up, was the Mindset 7 inch with the record release cover. I love the look of this cover.


The labels on side A and B are hand stamped


Number 6 of 78. 6 7 8...cool.

Speaking of Mindset, I took the opportunity to catch them in Boston a couple weeks ago. They were playing with Alert, Police & Thieves and Rival Mob...just a great line up. Leading up to the show, I couldn't find anyone to make the drive down with me. New England's first snow storm was in the forecast, and I almost just bailed on it and stayed at home. In addition to the great bands playing, the main thing that pushed me to get out and go to this show was that it was an opportunity to finally meet, face to face, some guys that I've met either through this blog, or through last.fm. I met up with Adam, and his brother-in-law, and hung out with them throughout the whole show. I finally met up with Keith from Alert, and talked with him Alert's singer, Mike. I also got to say hi to Carlos from Police & Thieves. In addition to all the cool people that I met, Sweet Pete was there and I got to hang with him for a while too...we got talking about the old Boston bands that were around when we first met at shows...bands like Kingpin, Said & Done, Endless, and Third Degree. The show itself was great. Alert played a couple of new songs that sounded really good, Police & Thieves were pretty tight and did a great Chain of Strength cover (see picture above), but Mindset just killed it. After seeing this band live, you can't help but have a greater appreciation for how good they are. Awesome gig. Awesome night.

Paint It Blood

There is no doubt about it, Slayer rule my Metal world. I loved their last album, Christ Illusion, and I was eagerly anticipating the release of World Painted Blood. Several tracks were leaked online prior to the release date, but I avoided them. I wanted to experience the album as a whole, and not bits and pieces streamed through some shitty youtube video. The day that it was released, I rushed out to Newbury Comics and picked up the deluxe CD version of the album. It was a disappointing experience, in that the one that I bought had two copies of the bonus DVD and no CD. I returned it to find that every deluxe version that Newbury's had, contained two DVD's and no CD. Since I needed this album, I took an extra drive over to Bull Moose and finally bought a complete deluxe version from them. The first listen, I was a bit underwhelmed. It was good, but not the thrashfest that I was hoping for. By the second or third listen, it started to suck me in. Songs like Psychopathy Red, Unit 731, Hate Worldwide, Snuff, and the title track, are amazing. I can hear influences from Reign in Blood and Seasons in the Abyss throughout the album.

Last week, I finally had the cash to pick up the album on vinyl. Great looking packaging with the gatefold cover, and the slick looking record sleeve. One of the best Metal albums of 2009.

Getting A Piece

The last piece of free vinyl from Words Of War Records, that came with my Iron Boots records through the eBay win. Seriously, how cool is this label to send me so much free stuff. I'm assuming they do the same with their other eBay auctions, and it's not just me. This time around they included a free copy of the Masterpiece 7 inch on black vinyl (limited to 151). The cover for this record gives off a heavy "Outbreak vibe", and the lyrics take that kind of direction, this record reminds me more of the mid-90's band on Indecision and New Age Records, Collateral Damage. Cool shit.

Built From Nothing

Free records are cool. When I received the Iron Boots package from the guy that runs Words Of War Records, he decided to throw a couple of extra records in the box. One of them was the grey vinyl pressing of the Built To Last 7 inch...limited to 286. The funny thing is that when I won a Champion 7 inch from the guy a few months back, he had thrown in an extra copy of Built To Last on black vinyl. Pretty cool hardcore band, and the two songs here are solid. Now if anyone has a yellow vinyl copy of this record, or one with the preorder cover, that you want to send me for free, I'd be happy to accept them and complete this collection.

Die With Your Boots On

What I knew about Iron Boots would fit on the head of a pin. I knew they had a couple of songs on the Revelation comp a few years ago, and I knew that while Marcus wasn't really collecting them, he had still managed to acquire quite a few pressings of their records. I had downloaded the Iron Boots demo a couple years ago, but I had never managed to get around to listening to it. After seeing Marcus post another version of their demo on his record collecting blog back in September, I figured that it was time that I finally check them out. I listened to those demo songs, and I was blown away. Wow, I didn't know they were this good! While their style is a complete rip of Warzone, I don't really care...this shit is awesome.

I hopped on to eBay and happened to find the guy from Words of War Records selling a group of three Iron Boots records. I'm not sure why people sell groups of records. If you've got one of them, are you really going to bid on the whole set? Since I didn't have any, it looked like a good place to start.
Weight Of The World 7 inch on Boredom Kills Records. Black vinyl, and I believe this is limited to 900.

From what I've read, it sounds like the demo was pressed on vinyl from a couple different record labels. The two that I got are from Damaged Records. Unlike the other pressing that I received, this one has a bigger version of the record cover printed on the flipside of the lyric sheet.

Pressed on orange vinyl for pre-orders, and indicated as such by the cloud and rainbow stamp.

The second copy that I got was on green vinyl for Posi Numbers. The other side of this lyric sheet is blank.

Number 62 of 100 pressed.

United In Pain

This may be the most pictures that I've uploaded for a single post, but damn, I really wanted to try and capture how nice these records look. There was a bit of an uproar when B9 first put up the pre-orders for their reissue of the classic Agnostic Front records, Victim in Pain and United Blood. Prior to their release Chris Wrenn had commented on the Livewire messageboard that he was going to stay true to the original artwork for these. When the pre-orders went up, some hardcore purists were upset that the plan had changed and new designs for the cover were used. I'm not concerned that the covers differ from the original Rat Cage pressing, I just wish that the Victim in Pain LP didn't have the exact same design as the United Blood 7 inch.

Three colors that I don't know the pressing info for. The gold vinyl is sold out in the B9 store, so I'm guessing that is the limited color.

Cool gatefold cover, complete with the lyrics printed on the inside.

While the record cover has a new design, Bridge Nine included the original artwork on the dust sleeve. When I first bought Victim In Pain back in the late 80's, I got the Combat re-issue with the black cover (and on cassette too, I might add), and it wasn't until a few years ago that I discovered that the album was originally released on Rat Cage with the concentration camp photo.

Just like Victim in Pain, United Blood was also pressed on the gold, red and black vinyl. It also includes the original artwork on the dust sleeve, plus it has an insert.


And finally here is the the entire order. Nice job, Bridge Nine.

Flame Still Burns

When I started this blog almost four years ago, I would have never imagined that it would have lasted this long. At the time, I was starting to get completely obsessed with record collecting, and so I started this up to help occupy my time with my new found love. Much to my surprise this little record collecting blog has attracted a fair bit of attention (over 25,000 hits on my stat counter to date). Years have passed and I have seen some other bloggers come and go, new friends have been made, and lots of money has been spent on new vinyl. At times, I've updated this blog once a week, and other times I've had enough new records coming in that I've had to update it every other day just to keep up. 2009 has been a huge year for me in regards to new vinyl, as my post count has already stomped previous years into the ground. So here we are with my 300th post. So for those of you that stop by and join me in this obsession, thanks. This flame will keep on burning strong, and I will continue to sing this song.

For my landmark 300th post, I knew that it had to be for a classic record. I recently acquired Youth of Today's We're Not In This Alone, and I figured that it was perfect for this post. I've been looking to pick up this record for years, but have continually passed it by for something more limited. When a poster on the Livewire messageboard listed some items with a set price, I finally took the leap and bought a copy. One of the best hardcore albums EVER. I originally owned this on cassette, that I bought in Boston around 1990, and then finally picked it up on CD when Revelation remastered the Youth of Today stuff back in 1997. I've never really looked to be a Youth of Today completist, but it always feels good to add one of their records to my collection.

Face Reality

Here is another new band that I decided to check out after someone posted about them on the REACT! messageboard. Hoods up and X'd up fists, what is there not to like about this one? You definitely know what to expect with this...straight ahead youth crew hardcore. No metal riffs. No emo. Damn right. This was pressed on Dead End Records, and when I checked their site today to try and find some pressing info, the site was pretty empty. Hell, the webstore doesn't even have any records in stock! Has the label closed up shop already? I'm glad I picked this up when I did.

Amor Y Guerra De Un Amigo

A few month ago, Carlos from Police & Thieves sent me a message, looking for my email address. Apparently he has been reading the blog (Hi Carlos!), and in addition to sharing some kind words, he also wanted to let me know that they had some record release pressings of the Amor Y Guerra 7 inch available on their myspace page. I knew that I wanted one, but having already put myself in the red for the month with other record purchases, I put off buying it.

Then last week, I got a message from Marcus on Facebook, asking for my address again. He was buying a record for himself, and since it was only $7.00, he figured that he would buy one for me as well. Wait a minute, wasn't that Police & Thieves record release going for $7.00? The package arrived in the mail this past week, and confirmed that was what Marcus had bought. Such a nice gesture. Thank you Marcus.

The colorful Aztec design on the record release cover looks fantastic. I'm a sucker for cover variations, and this one is just a lot of fun. Plus this one comes with a different lyric sheet, and although it isn't shown in the picture, it comes hand stamped with P&T on the back.

Limited to 75, mine is number 22. Damn, I'm going to have to get off my ass at some point and try to find the other Youngblood pressings that I slept on when the record was originally released. Such a great record.

On A Mission

I believe that I've mentioned in a previous post, I used to download a ton of music. Over the years I've amassed over 800 burned CDs in my music collection. It didn't bother me that the band would never get paid from my download of their album, because for the most part, the stuff I was downloading was music that I probably wasn't going to buy anyway. Typically this consisted only of Metal and Hip Hop, but occasionally I would download some hardcore bands to check them out and then just never get around to picking them up. Well, in the past 5 years or so, my thinking started to change. I noticed that I had really fallen back in love with Metal and I started actively searching out vinyl or CD to replace those burned copies. On the other hand, most of the Hip Hop that I had acquired had really gotten stale and boring to my ears, and I just started dumping some of it. I noticed the other day that I had some hardcore albums from the past few years that I still had on a CDR, and I needed to purchase them. I headed to REV.HQ and picked up CDs from Risky Business and Hour of the Wolf, but for Capital, I wanted it on vinyl.

Homefront is such an amazing album. I can't believe that it has taken me this long to finally pick up a copy (gold vinyl is limited to 332). I used to love Silent Majority, and since Capital has the same singer, the comparisons are obvious. Silent Majority songs have this fantastic story telling quality, and that carries over to Capital as well. With On A Mission, the singer tell us of heading out with some friends 17 years ago, and discovering the The Way It Is LP at some record store, and about how life changing it was. It will strike a familiar chord with many of us "older" guys, and it just captures the moment perfectly.

Revelation also had Capital's newest 7 inch, Blind Faith, so I picked up a copy of that as well (red vinyl is limited to 300). Man, this band continues to amaze me. Two new songs, plus a Dag Nasty cover.

A Need To Keep Trying

I can't stay on track. I try to focus on collecting vinyl for one band, but a week later I've got my eye on something different. Commitment issues. I've been wanting to work on my Fastbreak collection for a while now, and back in July I finally picked up a black vinyl copy of the Don't Stop Trying 7 inch with the green lettering on the cover. I didn't give up on them after than and stuck with it, winning the gold vinyl pressing on eBay back in August. I love the colored vinyl on this pressing. I've read that this could be the second press and limited to 100. Sounds good to me, and seemed like a steal at $6.00. Seriously, I love Fastbreak...everything from the Youth Pride demo, up through the Whenever You're Ready LP on Revelation. The band was so good and was one of the few that managed to successfully transition from straight up Youth Crew hardcore to a more poppy/melodic style. Well it has been 3 months since I've bought this, and I have stopped looking for Fastbreak vinyl on eBay, so I guess that I've moved on to the next bright and shiny object that has caught my eye. I hope that I can get my focus back to this band soon because they deserve it.

Deluxe and Limited Pressings

Nick Mango recently contacted me about a new feature that he was working on called hoverboard. Hoverboard is basically a messageboard for blogs on his limitedpressing.com site. He was looking to feature some blogs that he personally reads all the time or are popular, and he wanted to know if I would be interested in having The One Thing That Still Holds True participate. I thought that it sounded like a cool idea, and he is doing some cool new things with limitedpressing.com, so I figured what the hell, and jumped aboard. The funny thing is that Nick mentioned that so far the only people that he had contributing were Straight Edge dudes, like myself, Marcus from Endless Quest, and Justin from Stuck In The Past, and he was hoping to get some possible non-edge guys in there as well. So with that, and a hacking cough from Sweet Leaf, I'll bring a decidedly non-edge post with Black Sabbath's Master Of Reality.

I finally picked up the deluxe vinyl pressing of Sabbath's classic Master Of Reality. As far as I know, only the first three Black Sabbath albums are being released in this double LP deluxe format, so if that is the case, this is the last one that I needed. The pricing on these records have been pretty erratic. The self titled first album was $20, Paranoid was $30, and finally Master Of Reality was $25. Strange. It's not like the Paranoid album contains any extra packaging than the first Sabbath album. Either way, Master Of Reality is a monster of a record, and with the bonus outtakes and alternate versions included on this pressing, this is a must for the Sabbath completist.

I know that I've previously stated that Paranoid was my favorite Sabbath album, but from looking at my complete vinyl collection, I would have to say that Masters Of Reality is the clear winner.

Step On It

Sometimes I'm pretty slow. I hear of great new bands, but I put off checking them out until I'm forced to do so...and then I end up wishing that I hadn't waited so long. I remember hearing about Step Forward a couple of years ago. Boston Straight Edge featuring DFJ from Mental. Yet each time I would see their 10 Song EP for sale in one of the online distros, I continually passed it by...until it was sold out. I downloaded these tracks on Soulseek about a year ago, and even then, I still didn't really listen to them. When I saw that the band was playing the Edge Day show this year with Have Heart, I figured that it was about time that I start to listen to this. Damn. This is so good, and I listened to it repeatedly prior to the show. I was hoping that the band would have the 7 inch for sale, but no luck, as it appears to be out of print. Desperate times call for desperate measures, and I started searching eBay. I was happy to win a copy for only $11. 418 were pressed on black for the first press on Painkiller Records, and then they did a second press of 350, also on black vinyl. I have no idea which pressing this on is, nor do I think that it really matters.

Devoid Of Faith

Most people with any knowledge of Hardcore history, have probably already heard all of the early Dischord catalog. Not me. For some reason, up until recently, my collection went from Minor Threat straight into the Revolution Summer bands like Embrace, Fugazi, and Soul Side. I completely missed the early harD.C.ore years. Over the past year, I've really started digging in to the Dischord early years and finding those classic bands that I've been missing out on. The newest discovery for me is the Faith/Void split LP. Dischord recently reissued this on colored vinyl, so I figured that it was a good time to check it out. Great stuff, and I can see why a band like In My Eyes would cover their song What's Wrong With Me. Classic.

Remission Impossible

The React Records messageboard has introduced me to some cool new hardcore bands. It is a great place for an old guy like myself to keep in touch with what is going on, and which new bands are blowing up. One of the more recent finds was Remission from Chile. The band name was obviously lifted from the One Step Ahead 7 inch of the same name, because the band really has that kind of melodic style nailed down. If you don't know who One Step Ahead are, they totally coped the Verbal Assault sound in the early 90's...so you can say that Remission have a sound similar to both of those bands. Seriously, if you told me that this was originally released in 1991, I would believe it. Great stuff. Pick this up from Amendment Records. Purple vinyl is limited to 100 pressed.

A True Perspective

Man, I have been really pressed for time lately. The days and weeks fly by, and it has been difficult finding time to spend at the computer each night. In addition to the time, money has been pretty tight as well. Other than some pretty big pre-orders that I couldn't resist, I've been trying to keep my record shopping on a short leash. I'm not sure how successful I've really been, but it feels like it has been a long fucking time since I've won anything on eBay. The steady stream of new vinyl passing through my mailbox has slowed to a slight trickle. So tonight, I broke away from the TV, while my wife is slowly falling asleep on the couch, to post on the True Colors 7 inch that I picked up on eBay a while back. I couldn't believe that the pre-order pressing of the Perspective record only went for around $7.00, but I was happy to be the winner on it. Number 4 of 200 pressed on white vinyl with the Powered Records pre-order stamp. True Colors are so damn good.

Doing Nothing

Other than sitting on a board and riding it down my driveway when I was 10 years old, I have never skated. I've never felt coordinated enough to even attempt it...knowing that I would soon end up on my ass. So even though I've never done it, I can still appreciate a good skate band. Whether you are Possessed To Skate with Suicidal, catching a Frontside Grind with Underdog, going to Skate and Destroy with SSS, or "grinding slappies all day long" with Nothing Done...I'm down with it. I've been scouring eBay for Nothing Done's Idiot Stomp 7 inch for a while now, and was pretty excited to finally find and win a copy...even if was only on black vinyl and limited to 720 copies. This was released on Not Just Words Records back in 2004, and has been sold out for a while. Man, this EP rages. Hardcore punk with plenty of attitude.

Taking Hostages

When I saw Hostage Calm play at the last show for The First Step a year ago, I was hopeful that they would have vinyl for their newest LP, Lens. I was disappointed to find that they only had it available on CD. Thankfully, Redscroll Records made sure that this saw a proper vinyl release at the beginning of 2009. I'm kind of at a loss on how to describe Hostage Calm's sound, because they don't really have a sound that I can easily compare them to. They do a nice melodic hardcore style that typically turns me off...but really, I'm loving this. Listening to this today, I can't help but be impressed. Packaging on this is pretty slick as well, with a nice big fold out lyric sheet. The copy that I picked up was on a white and black split colored vinyl, and limited to 200.

Mob Rules

I had never heard of The Rival Mob until Sven turned me on to them a couple of months ago. I was blown away. It was rough, raw and ugly. Hardcore. I loved it and immediately set out to get myself a copy on vinyl. It was released on Lockin' Out Records, and to be honest, I had no idea that this label was still around, nor did I know where to pick up their stuff. I was checking through the distro list at the Six Feet Under store, and managed to find a copy there, so I picked it up. To my surprise, The Rival Mob ended up playing Have Heart's last show on Edge Day. I didn't think they were a part of the original line up, but it was cool to check them out live. To balance out their negativity, they did a cover of Crippled Youth's Positive Scene, which was a nice touch.

Edge Day 2009

The Edge Day show this year was both a ton of fun and a huge disappointment. The show itself was a blast. Rob, Paul and I drove down to Massachusetts yesterday, and compared to our previous roadtrip to Toronto, this drive flew by and before we knew it, we were at the club. It was complete chaos trying to get into the show, as the club kept redirecting the lines to get inside. Pat Flynn started off organizing everyone, and seemed to have everything well in hand, and then the people running the club continued to move the lines about 5 or 6 times...moving people from one side of the building to other. By the time they wanted all 1,500 people to organize into a single file line, the crowd lost any semblance of order and started getting unruly and crowd surfing. We were at the front of the line, so we were one of the first ones inside, and therefore were amongst the crowd of 50 that got to see No Tolerance play their set. I was really looking forward to checking them out and they did not disappoint. Waste Management, Rival Mob, Step Forward, Foundation and Cruel Hand all played fantastic sets as well, but the highlight of my evening was when Sweet Pete took the mic and they started ripping through a handful of In My Eyes songs. In My Eyes is one of my favorite hardcore bands of all time, and I went off for Pete and his makeshift band...stagediving left and right, and taking the microphone from him to sing along (I'm in the photo above, next to Pete, with the No For An Answer shirt). By the time Bane and Have Heart hit the stage, I was pretty beat and had to work myself to the back of the crowd for each of their sets. All in all it was a great send off, for a great Straight Edge band. Have Heart, R.I.P.

The big disappointment was the lack of a Have Heart Last Show vinyl pressing. Once inside, I rushed to the merch tables, but no one had any limited Edge Day vinyl...I was pretty bummed. Given the number of special covers and tour presses Have Heart has for their records, I was really looking forward to something really epic for their last show. The only piece of vinyl that I picked up was a tour pressing for the Foundation 7 inch on Six Feet Under. This record really impresses, sounding like it came straight out of the early 90's hardcore scene. Comparable to Unbroken's Ritual LP, or maybe Chokehold's Prison of Hope. I'm liking it.

Following Through On The Edge

Since tomorrow, October 17th, is Edge Day, I figured that it would be appropriate to post a record that I received recently from a great mid-90's Straight Edge band. It would probably make more sense for me to actually make this post tomorrow, but since I'll be celebrating my 18th year of the Straight Edge at the final Have Heart show in Boston, I figured that I'd get things started a little early.

Led by singer Craig Mack and bassist Jesse Stand Hard, Follow Through never seemed to reach the legendary status as Ten Yard Fight, In My Eyes and Floorpunch, but damn, they should have. With songs like You Booze You Lose, this Connecticut band were unapologetically Straight Edge and proud. I've had this on CD since it was originally released in 1997, but when someone posted a list of vinyl they were selling on the Livewire board, I didn't hesitate to take this Edge classic off his hands and finally get it into my record collection...and for the $3.00 price tag, I would be a fool not to. Now, you'll have to excuse me while I drop the needle on this album, and practice some stage dives on to my couch.

Don't Fear The Reaper

The vinyl for the ON LP was a split release between React Records and Reaper Records (not to mention a Euro release from Powered Records), and both labels had their own pre-order colors pressed. Needless to say, between the three record labels, I spent a ton of money the day that pre-orders went up. The first to arrive was a huge order from React, but I soon heard that numerous people had received their Reaper orders weeks earlier. I still hadn't seen mine, so I fired off an email to Patrick from Reaper Records to ask him if my order had shipped. I'm not sure what had happened, and I was getting a little paranoid after my Alert 7 inches didn't arrive from Life to Live Records, but a couple of days later Patrick replied...apologizing and promising to send it out right away. Not sure if he didn't mail it the first time around, or if the Post Office black hole sucked into another dimension to keep my Alert records company. Either way, Patrick responded quickly and within a couple of days, I had my Reaper pressing for the ON Double Vision LP. I thought that originally it was going to be on clear vinyl, but it seems there was a change of plans and it was pressed on a nice looking grey wax.

In addition to the ON vinyl, Reaper also threw in a copy of the new Maximum Penalty LP. To be honest, I wasn't really familiar with the band. Yeah, I knew that they were on the Where The Wild Things Are comp, but I've never really paid any attention to them. In fact, other than Gorilla Biscuits and Breakdown, and can't really tell you who else is on that comp. For New York Hardcore comps, I was drawn more to The Way It Is, so I never really paid it much attention. So back to Maximum Penalty...the sticker on the cover states that it was produced by the same guy that did albums from Lamb of God and Ill Nino...which was a big load of "who the fuck cares" to me. Seriously, it really lowered my expectations for this album. I'm not a fan of "tough guy" hardcore with a metal influence, and I was really not excited for this album. I convinced myself to give it a shot, and I was pleasantly surprised. It wasn't a Hatebreed/Terror style of hardcore that I expected, but reminded me more of Leeway. Not bad. I'm still not entirely comfortable with some of the singing on this album, but really, it's not bad. Packaging on this is top notch and the vinyl comes with a slick looking download card, but you have to download one song at a time which is a pain in the ass.

Deluxe Paranoia

Picked up another Black Sabbath deluxe vinyl pressing. This time around it is Sabbath's second album, Paranoid. I'm not sure what the difference was between this one and the self titled Black Sabbath album, but for some reason, Paranoid was around $10 more. Still, it didn't stop me from buying it. Quite possibly the best Sabbath album. Sure it has songs like Iron Man, Paranoid, and War Pigs which have been played into the ground, but as a whole, this album is near perfect. Seriously, drop the needle on War Pigs, turn it up loud, and try and tell me that the drumming on this one is not amazing.

Somewhere Back In Time

One of my first concerts was to see Iron Maiden on tour for the Powerslave tour. It set a standard on stage shows for all other Heavy Metal bands to follow, and for very few to ever meet. When Maiden decided to tour last year, only doing songs from their "glory days", which includes their albums up through the Seventh Son LP, Jeff and I made sure that we got our tickets to see them for the Massachusetts show. The show was an amazing one, exceeding my expectations. It was no surprise when Iron Maiden released a live album to document the tour, and it was probably no surprise to anyone that knows me that I ended up picking up a copy in every format that was released. On release day I bought the CD, then Rob ended up buying me the DVD for my birthday, and for the final piece of the puzzle, I bought the picture disc double LP with the last of the birthday money I had received from my family.

I am typically not a fan of the picture disc, but come on, there is no denying that this looks amazing. Nice, heavy dust sleeves that are loaded up with full color pictures from the tour to accompany the vinyl. All in all, great packaging, complete with a nice looking gatefold sleeve.