Liberty And Justice For Records

Keeping things in that classic hardcore lane, another record that I recently picked up from Tim's old collection was Agnostic Front's Liberty and Justice For... album. This was another one that I didn't expect from him. The first two AF albums... okay, maybe I could see that, but this one was a surprise find.

Liberty and Justice For... has been on my wantlist for a long time. Like so many albums from this time, I originally bought it on CD or cassette, and while my intention has always been to get the vinyl onto my shelves, for this one, it hasn't happened for one reason or another. Each time I'd check the Discogs prices, I'd cringe a bit and think the price was a bit too high. Seeing this one from Tim's collection, still in the shrinkwrap, price wasn't a concern... I just needed to have it.

While this was a crucial album for me in my senior year of high school... when I was just starting to discover hardcore... it isn't a record that I return to very often in recent years. Giving this copy a spin has had me appreciating it a bit more right now. I mean, this is where AF and I part ways (okay, One Voice isn't bad, but I rarely think to listen to it), but this album still holds up.

Take A Stand

My friend Jeff recently came into possession of someone's record collection. It is a long story with a tragic ending that I won't get into here, but at the end of the day, Tim isn't with us any longer... and well, someone had to get his records. I didn't really know Tim that well, but our paths crossed a few times in the early 90's because of Jeff as our mutual friend, and I knew that he was a big lover of music... in fact he made me a couple of mixtapes back then, full of early punk bands that I'd never heard of before. Man, I wish that I'd kept those just as a reference point as to what he was trying to turn me on to at the time (the only band that I remember was on there was Christ On Parade)... but Tim was a few years older than I was and therefore had first hand experience with some of that early 80's punk stuff. Either way, when Jeff told me that he was getting Tim's record collection, I immediately called for first refusal on anything that he wasn't interested... and knowing that Jeff isn't a fan of punk, I was hoping for some good shit. Jeff wasn't going to be giving this stuff away, but a sizable discount made some of this much more affordable compared to trying to scoop it from Discogs.

One of the records that surprised me when Jeff started showing me some what he'd received from Tim's collection was the Break Down The Walls album from Youth Of Today. I knew that Tim was into early punk, but I had no idea that he would have some hardcore stuff like this. Seeing how I owned four REV reissues for this record, I was kind of excited to finally get my hands on the original REV pressing. I know that we aren't talking Wishingwell here, but the blue and yellow labels just look so good to me.

I don't really collect REV or Youth Of Today records, and I never really set out to own this one (although I imagine that it wouldn't have been too hard to acquire over the years), but it feels good to finally have this on my shelf. Knowing that Tim kept his records in top shape made this an easy purchase.

Grand Sunraven

As we get ready to move into December and start closing in on the end of the year, I wanted to get up one more post for a new release before moving into a bunch of posts for older records that I've recently picked up. Get ready, because we are going back in time for next month.

Ten years ago, or so, Grand Magus were kind of a big deal for me. My friend, Sandwell, introduced me to the band and at the time they took over my life. I could not get enough of that band. I followed them closely over the next six years or so, and rushed to pick up their new records and back catalog. As we moved through the Covid years, I kind of lost interest in them... don't get it twisted, I still loved the band, but they weren't releasing anything new and I started paying attention to other things... and I forgot about them for a bit. Earlier this year, when I heard that they had a new album on the way, it ignited that fire again, and I rushed to preoreder the record. I was so excited that I ordered from the Nuclear Blast European store to make sure that I got my hands on the best vinyl option. The yellow/orange sunburst was limited to 500, and looks as good as I'd hoped.

Man, Sunraven hits exactly as I'd hoped it would. New records from Fu Manchu and The Obsessed have helped reignite my interest in this style of music this year, so when the new Grand Magus album dropped, I was primed and ready. This thing had me hooked from the start. Great traditional metal, and is sure to be one of my favorites of the year.

The Pearls You Clutch

One of the newer bands that tops my list anytime they release a record is Bent Blue. That band just delivers every time, so when I saw that Indecision Records was releasing the bands newest album, you know that I jumped to get my order in.

Dude, this record. Damn. Bent Blue have always played around with that Revolution Summer hardcore sound, and they continue to do that here, but for some reason So Much Seething feels like a more urgent and angry record. I mean, when The Pearls You Clutch kicks in, I just want to rage... dancing and taking down everyone that has the misfortune of being in the kitchen while I'm preparing dinner and listening to this record. That's right, I own the dance floor in this house. This record is so good, and I'm glad that Bent Blue still keep that spark going a few records in.

I don't tend to buy multiple copies of records these days, but when I was in the Indecision store and saw that they only had two colored vinyl options available with the release of So Much Seething, it confused me to see a label being reasonable... and I bought both of them. I don't know what came over me, but it was nice to not see 5 or 6 different options and I was like "oh two? yeah, I can collect two." 150 pressed on purple and 350 pressed on green.

Killing A Camera

As I've mentioned on this blog before, I spent a lot of time earlier this year obsessing over Modest Mouse. There were a few of their albums that I rediscovered and they all hooked me much deeper than they did in the early 2000's. Since Modest Mouse were seeing so much action on my Spotify account, the algorithm started making recommendations for bands that fell into that similar style of music. Cue another discovery of an older band that I didn't truly appreciate the first time around.

Braid were another indie/emo band from the mid to late 90's that I had checked out at the time, but never really connected with. I bought a couple of 7 inches and CDs from the band, so I obviously gave them plenty of chances, however, nothing really hit me the way that I wanted... and after their Niagara 7 inch in 1997, I stopped trying. When Spotify put the Braid song Killing A Camera on my radar over the summer, I was amazed at just how good that song was. I was surprised that I hadn't been into this song back in the day, and when I looked into it, I found that it came from their album Frame & Canvas, which was released in 1998... after I'd given up on the band. Killing A Camera was such a great song, that I quickly checked out the full album it came from... and when I started listening to that entire record daily, I knew that I was going to need to buy the vinyl.

I've had a few problems buying stuff off of Discogs lately. Each one has easily been resolved with the seller, but it is disappointing to buy something that you are excited for, only to have it arrived damaged or for the seller to send a different pressing than the one that you'd ordered. I guess that I still assume that people know what they are doing, but after being burned a couple of times, it makes me wish that the Discogs marketplace would at least force sellers to list photos of the actual item. With this Braid record, I wanted the blue vinyl pressing from 2003. It looked better than any of the recent represses on various colors, so that's what I was holding out for. Months went by before Discogs showed a seller with a copy for a good price, and when I saw it, I jumped on it. Only what the seller sent was the 2020 reissue on silver and blue swirl. Not what I'd ordered. The seller was easy to work with and ended up giving me a refund so that at the end of the day the record only cost me $6, and that was enough for me to keep it.

Songs Of A Lost World

It's funny how some things change and evolve over time. A couple of years ago, if you'd asked me about The Cure, I would have responded with a resounding "no thanks". Last year I would have said, "oh yeah, I've found that there are a couple of songs that I enjoy". Earlier this year, I would have told you that Wish and Disintegration are actually really good records. Then here I am today, rushing out to buy the new album from The Cure.

Look, I don't know anything about the history for The Cure. This is all still new to me. Apparently it had been 16 years since the last Cure record, so it seemed to be a big deal for some people. I figured that I'd check it out, but I didn't really expect much from Songs Of A Lost World. I mean, 16 years is a long time to not release anything, so I felt the chances were high that this was going to be mid at best.

By the time I heard the second single, A Fragile Thing, it certainly had my attention. That song is so sad and so good... it felt like those earlier songs that I've obsessed over this year... so I was suddenly looking forward to the full album.

On release day, I assumed it would be easy enough to grab a copy of the record at the local store. I checked online, and could see that they had a few copies of the retail exclusive colored vinyl, and then a day or so later they were all gone. I did not expect them to sell out so quickly. Not wanting to settle on the black vinyl, I hit Discogs and grabbed one for a few dollars more. The grey vinyl looks good with the cover, so it was worth the extra money for me.

One of the things that attracted me to The Cure last year was the refreshing change that style of music was for me. I'd spent the entire Trump presidency and insurrection angry as fuck. Emotionally, they were hard times, and once Biden was in office and things settled down a bit, discovering music like The Cure felt really fucking good. It was refreshing and soothed those jagged parts of my brain. My jaw finally unclenched and muscles released some tension. It felt good to just wallow in sad and reflective emotions for a bit. Then last week, the US voted the fascist back into power. I don't know if I can face that again right now. Leave me the fuck alone... I'm just gonna hide inside this Cure record.

Karate Fires

There have been a few older indie bands that I've really connected with this year. I've been on a steady diet of stuff like The Cure, Modest Mouse and The Smiths.... but the biggest surprise this year has been my rediscovery of Karate. When I first heard this band in the late 90's/early 2000's, I thought that I might enjoy them, and proceeded to download three of their albums through Napster (or one of the many file sharing services that I was using at the time)... and even though I would give those albums a listen once every year or so, Karate never quite clicked with me and ultimately were forgettable.

20 years later, and looking back on where I was musically, I'm impressed that I even made the attempt back then because this is far outside of what I was listening to on a regular basis. Nice try, younger self.

When I decided to try Karate again this year, and started listening to The Bed Is In The Ocean, I was surprised with just how much I loved it. It was ridiculous just how much I listened to that record over the summer, and as we moved into the Fall, I figured that maybe it was time to try another album from the band. I jumped into Spotify and queued up their record from 2000, Unsolved, to see how it sat with me.

To be honest, I really wasn't expecting much with Unsolved. When I started listening, my 2000-brain kicked back in and I figured this record would be slow and boring. I was fully prepared to accept The Bed Is In The Ocean as the exception rather than the rule, and that it would probably be the only Karate that I liked. I love being proven wrong... because while Unsolved is more laid back, jazzy and chill, I still can't get enough of it.

Because I had picked up a colored vinyl reissue for The Bed Is In The Ocean, I wanted the same deal for Unsolved. After debating for a couple of weeks which version to get the "small fires" color which was on sale at the label's webstore for only $22.

Guided Tour

Me and High Vis have a complicated history. When I first checked out Blending from 2022, I immediately loved those first few songs on the record, but felt very underwhelmed with the rest of it. When I went back last year and checked out the band's first album, No Sense No Feeling, I felt that same kind of initial disappointment. There was something there that kept me kind of interested, but I didn't see what everyone was loving about the band. The lesson learned here is that sometimes I just need time, because sitting here a year or two later from first hearing those records, I can tell you that I fucking love them now.

When I first heard that High Vis had a new record coming out this year, again I was hesitant. I mean, I grew to really like those first two albums, but had they pushed themselves too far for me with this latest one? I'm not gonna lie, when I first heard Mind's A Lie, yeah, that's exactly what I was thinking. The electronic drum sound that starts the song, plus the female vocals, had me thinking that me and High Vis were done. Thankfully I didn't let my closed mind completely shut me down, and when the band released Drop Me Out as an advanced single, I fooking loved it. I loved it so much that it had me scrambling to check what options were still available for preorder, and grabbed this "orange crush" version that was exclusive to Going Underground Records (which I've never heard of before).

Man, this record is so rad. Is it my favorite new album this year? I don't know. I can't trust my opinions right now, because this is just hitting me so hard at the moment. Time will tell.

Satan In Crimson

Just when I have hopes that I'll be back to posting every couple of days, the US has an election that shows just how fucking dumb and short sighted people can be, and it immediately crushes any momentum that I had. What the actual fuck? PTSD of Trump's first presidency was triggered and I'm not sure how the fuck I'm going to deal with another four years of hateful bullshit from him and his fanbase. Fuck fuck fuck you.

I'm going to be avoiding a lot of social media and general news for a while, so maybe now that I've shaken off that initial shock, this is the perfect time to focus on records and churn out a bunch of posts.

Satan have been one of those rare New Wave Of British Heavy Metal bands that were able to come back after years of inactivity and just blow my mind with how good they still are. Their 5th album since reuniting in 2011, and Songs In Crimson does not disappoint. I've struggled to stay interested with a few new metal albums this year... like the Saxon and Judas Priest records are good, but I don't find myself wanting to return to them very often... and I worried that might be the case with the new Satan as well. I assumed that I might play it and forget it... but that was not how it went. I started playing the songs as I was working, and quickly lost focus on what I was doing because these songs screamed for my attention. This record is so good, and it is actually quite shocking how great the band continue to be this many years down the line.

700 pressed on "transparent pigeon blue marbled" color vinyl.

Rebirth Of Hardcore Pride

It feels that records from straight forward hardcore bands have been a bit of a rarity this year... or maybe it's just me and I'm that out of touch. Either way, when records like the new Statement of Pride come along, I'm gonna jump on it.

Statement Of Pride play that style of straight edge hardcore that I cannot ignore. Release that shit on Youngblood Records, I'll be there ordering multiple copies. I really liked what I'd heard from the band a couple of years ago, so I'm very happy to see that they had more to give. This 12 inch features four new songs, plus the four songs from the Out Of The Ashes EP from 2022 that never saw a vinyl release. I don't think that Youngblood carries the weight that it once did, but I hope that it is enough to put this band on kids radar because this record is so good.

100 pressed on clear vinyl, and 300 on green. I'd also like to get my hands on the two limited covers that are floating around for this record. Nothing makes me want to collect records like good straight edge bands.

Tough

No matter how fun it was for me to pick up the alternate cover for Lana Del Rey's Chemtrails Over The Country Club, the floodgates still haven't fully opened for me to chase down a bunch of her records. Still, I didn't hesitate to order her latest single.

I wasn't sure how I was going to feel about this latest song, Tough. It's a collaboration with some hip hop artist that I'd never heard of before, Quavo, and I kind of expected it to be a bit underwhelming. I mean, how far was I expected to push my musical boundaries, and how much could I take?

Fact is that after a couple of listen, I really liked this song. Maybe it was the timing of it, because I'd just started reading Larry McMurty's Lonesome Dove book shortly after the song was released, and the opening song lyric of "Tough like a scuff on a pair of old leather boots" really set the mood for reading that 800 page epic. I ended up realy loving Lonesome Dove (one of my favorite books that I read this year), and Tough is my soundtrack to that reading experience. The two will forever be tied together in my mind.

I'm not sure if this song is going to appear anywhere else, or if it is considered a Lana song featuring Quavo, or a Quavo song featuring Lana...whatever... I'm just happy to own this song on vinyl and it didn't end up as a digital only release.

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.

Hellish Expectations

I had every intention on getting my post count back on track this month, and then it all fell apart and October is shaping up to have my lowest post count in the past 15 years. It kind of bums me out, but I just haven't been able to get my attention focused on this thing. Granted, I was gone for over a week on holiday this month, and then I had trouble finding motivation to write about a four album Black Sabbath boxset, but I still hoped to have my post count higher than this for the month. Still, I've bought some cool new records, plus have been excited to add some old classics to my collection recently... so maybe November will be more productive for me.

Midnight released their sixth album, Hellish Expectations, back in March this year, but I've had a hard time working up the interest to check out new releases this year. So while I liked what I'd heard, I just couldn't stay motivated to stick with it, and since the record wasn't available at a local record store, I couldn't be bothered to track one down online. Basically, I was uninterested and lazy.

Here we are, seven months later, and my interest in new records has been sparked. I'm listening to new shit more these days, and after revisiting the new Midnight album a few more times, I knew that I needed to get a copy before the year was out. Hellish Expectations is pure Midnight speed metal. It is exactly what I want from the band. If my mind was right earlier this year, I would have jumped all over this because it is so good.

"Sangria" colored vinyl.

Black Box

I can't believe that this is the second box set that I've purchased this year. I try to stay away from these things nowadays, as I generally find them a big waste of precious shelf space. Still, I needed the Shotmaker box because they are such an underapprciated 90's hardcore punk gem, and then this Black Sabbath box was absolutely crucial.

The Anno Domini box from Black Sabbath finally delivers what hardcore fans have been begging for... the Tony Martin albums, remastered and reissued. Originally released during some of metal's lowest years, it seems that most Sabbath fans look down their nose at those albums with Tony Martin singing for the band. Clowns gonna be "Ozzy or nothing", but to ignore Martin's output with the band is straight up criminal behavior. Of course the Sabbath camp hasn't made it easy to check out those albums as they let the fall away into obscurity, and haven't seen a release since their original pressing in the early 90's... until now.

Headless Cross was the last Sabbath album that I bought on CD before basically abandoning metal throughout the 90's, and I've wanted to pick up the original pressing of the record for years. Owning this box set is good enough for me, and I can stop wringing my hands over having to pay close to $100 to own this.

Tyr was originally released in 1990 and is probably the Tony Martin album that I'm least familiar with. I wasn't completely checked out of metal at this point, but I was on my way out the door... but still, I don't remember hearing a thing about this record when it was released. Ten years later, as I was looking back and catching up on what I'd missed out on, I discovered that this album, plus their next one, Cross Purposes, even existed.

After Tyr, Dio came back to Sabbath and recorded the excellent Dehumanizer, before the line up imploded again. Tony Martin came back to the band and in 1994 they recorded one of my favorite albums with him at the mic... Cross Purposes. Martin tends to have a bit of Dio's sound to his voice, but here, I can really hear it.

Finally, we have Forbidden from 1995. I do seem to recall hearing about this album around the time it was being released, but I think that was only because people were talking about how bad it was. While it is the weakest of the Tony Martin albums, I do still enjoy it... but this is coming from someone that tends to really enjoy universally panned albums like St. Anger or the self titled Warzone record, so take it as you will.

This is a solid box set. In addition to the four records, there is a nice booklet with tons of pictures and information, plus giant Headless Cross poster and a reproduction of the tour program. So glad that Sabbath finally released this!

Bad Brains Blue Note

I never really paid much attention to Bad Brains beyond Rock For Light. Sure, I'd listened to I Against I, and I appreciated it enough to spin it once a year, but it wasn't an album that I listened to that closely or spent much time with. A few years ago, however, I Against I started to catch my ear more and more... then last year, I really became hooked on the title track, and I listened the fuck out of that song. Of course that obsession eventually bled over to the full album, and suddenly I found myself really wanting to chase down a copy. When Ralf started posting colored vinyl versions of the album earlier this year, it only fueled my desire to track down a copy... but then I got side tracked by a rad looking reissue.

The cover design here pays tribute to those iconic Blue Note jazz records, with the tinted photography and clean bold text. These "Punk Note" versions look fucking sharp for the Bad Brains reissues and make me want to finally listen to Quickness to see if I want to bother chasing down more of these. Collector mentality is going to make me listen to records that I'd never given much thought to, isn't it?

Because I'm an idiot, I can't remember who messaged me about this reissue of I Against I being available. If it was you, let me know. Either way, as soon as I saw this great looking cover art and colored vinyl, I was all over it. Discogs has this listed as "coke bottle clear" vinyl, but this copy looks more clear with some blue swirled lightly into it. Is this the same thing?

Every Day Is Leg Day

There have only a few new releases so far this year that have really surprised me and had me excited. There have been plenty of discoveries for me this year that have given me a charge, and I've enjoyed listening to some new records that have come out, but for those that I've really obsessed over... they have been few and far between. One of those that has really caught my attention though, has been the new Whores album.

I've seen the Whores name pop up a few times as a recommendation on Spotify, and while I wouldn't say that the band name turned me off, let's just say that it didn't exactly make me rush to check them out. I don't know... I guess that I assumed they were some super sludgy sounding band , and I wasn't interested. But I recently saw that Whores were going to be playing near me, and with a new album I figured the time was right to finally put those assumptions aside and actually give them a listen.

Oh shit. Very quickly after I started to check them out, I wanted to buy the album and catch their live show when they come through town. Well, since I'm out of town when they will be playing their live show here, I guess I'll have to just be happy with one of those things. This record, from start to finish, is great. It isn't as sludgy as I expected, and some of these songs move alone nicely, but overall this thing hits hard and heavy... my mind keeps thinking My War era Black Flag (with less depression and more fuzz). Fuck. This one surprised me and I'm eating it up.

I wasn't sure which colored vinyl pressing I wanted. I didn't think that the option were all that great, but decided that I'd order the third press of blue in clear vinyl from the label, and that would be good enough. Instead they sent the second press of orange in yellow, which is a color combination that doesn't even make sense here. Ugh. I should have just bought what I wanted through Discogs.

The Kids Are Back At Donington

My friend Jeff gave me this record as a Christmas gift last year. He has recently acquired a bunch of old classic hardcore and punk records to sell for a friend, and since I'll be slowly buying some from him in the near future, I figured that I'd better get this album up on the blog before I get to the more interesting shit.

While I do really love the early Twisted Sister records, I probably wouldn't have bothered to chase down this live set at Donington from '83. This live recording has been available for years as a bootleg, but it seems to have received an official release back in 2022. I'm not wild about the record cover... especially using a photo from a year or so after this recorded show... but the live songs themselves sound great, and as a gift, I'll happily add this to the collection and give it the occasional spin.

The colored vinyl doesn't look too terrible, but could have done without the black splatter. Splatter ruins everything.

Chemtrails Over An Alternate Cover

I've posted some questionable things on the blog before... most notable was my brief obsession with Japanese singles for those early 80's MTV hits. Those records, however, were very much a comfort for me during a period where America's political climate had me angry and depressed a lot of the time, so I felt justified posting them here. But with this latest record that I picked up, I wasn't so sure if I should include it on a blog that mostly focuses on hardcore and metal. When I saw the post that Marcus did for Olivia Rodrigo a couple of months back, it cleared my head of this doubt. Even though this falls outside of what I normally buy for records, it is very much a snapshot of where my head is at... plus if I've learned anything over the past year it's that I won't limit myself to the restrictive musical views I've held in the past. This is my mind wide fucking open.

Last year, my friend Sarah introduced me to Lana Del Rey with her song West Coast. I found it somewhat interesting upon first listen, but it wasn't something that I expected that I'd really spend much time with. It was way outside of what I typically listened to, but it provided a nice break in my routine, and after hearing it a handful of times it really started to work its way into my brain. Soon after, the song would pop up on a random shuffle and as soon as I'd hear those funky opening notes my ears would instantly perk up and I'd be like, "wait, who is this again?", and I started to be interested in checking out what else Lana had to offer. Through the Fall of 2023, I started making a personal playlist on Spotify for Lana Del Rey songs that I found interesting, and before too long I was really enjoying it and revisiting those songs daily.

Yeah, I was shocked as well... but still, I figured that I was really only going to get into some of her songs, and she wouldn't be a full album artist for me. That changed this year, as I started takind a deep dive into Born To Die... and then when that wasn't enough I started repeat listens of Norman Fucking Rockwell, and Chemtrails Over The Country Club. I don't know, man, there is just something about her voice that is melancholic and sad, and it gets me every fucking time.

Look, if you've been a long time follower of this blog, you know that I'm a sucker for alernative artwork for records. I can't resist a special limited cover... and Lana Del Rey has a number of those for her albums. So while I was thinking about buying my first Lana album, and checking those different covers, it only fueled the fire to want to get one into my collection. I'd been listening to Chemtrails a lot recently, and the album has a couple of my favorite songs from Lana with Let Me Love You Like A Woman and Dark But Just A Game, so finding the red vinyl special cover for that album, at a really reasonable price, had me adding it to my cart and checking out. Writing this has me checking out other alternate covers for her records, so who knows where this will lead me, but I kinda want more.

Crooked Bat Claw

The new Bat album was released back in May this year, and while I've really enjoyed the other records from them, 2025 has been a strange year and I haven't been able to work up any interest until now. Something clicked in my brain a few weeks ago when I was posting the latest album from The Obsessed, and suddenly I felt the urge to check out some of the more newer metal records. The new Bat album came to mind, and I headed over to Spotify to finally check it out.

Bat haven't released anything since before the Covid pandemic... so, like 100 years ago. No worries though, because Bat keep doing what Bat does best and channelling that old Venom sound (with a healthy dose of Motorhead's Orgasmatron) directly into Under The Crooked Claw. Initially I wasn't too excited about the cartoon bat cover art, but after a friend showed me examples of what other bands were doing with their generic AI looking covers, I suddenly felt a lot better about this one.

Shockingly, there seems to be only one colored vinyl pressing of this album. 1,500 on clear with black marble. Happy to be able to grab this copy at a local record store instead of Discogs for a change.

Spaced Out

I've been terrible at keeping up with new music this year. It is September and I think that I've only heard three new hardcore records (Planet on a Chain, One Step Closer and the Wreckage 7 inch that I can't find the colored vinyl for). I really need someone to help put shit on my radar because I'm dropping the ball big time this year. Thankfully, Marcus came through and dropped me a note, asking if I'd checked the Spaced record that Rev released.

I'd seen some fellow bloggers post about Spaced... Marcus had a great post with all of the versions of the new record, and Ralf mentioned comparisons to Turnstile with the first Spaced record, so while I was definitely interested, I still wasn't paying attention. I needed that extra push of a direct recommendation. Once I finally sat down and checked the record, I was immediately hooked.

Spaced sound really cool, and they actually remind me a lot of Buggin. Fast hardcore that makes me want to move. So good, and will be getting a lot of spins from me through the end of the year. Seriously, what else am I missing?

Never Mind The Spiritual Cramps

A couple of months ago, my friend Sarah had messaged me, asking if I could find her a limited record that she was interesting in buying. Easy enough task for someone like me that is always on the hunt for records, and within minutes I was sending her a discogs link for where she could buy it. I thought the price was reasonable, but for someone that doesn't collect records, the $50 price tag may have seemed a bit high. She ended up buying the record and then I got to talking about some expensive records that I had sitting in my Discogs cart that I've been hesitant to pull the trigger on... and after talking her into buying a record, I felt like it was time to treat myself as well.

I've been obsessed with Spiritual Cramp since discovering them early this year. I really like this band, but I was a bit on the fence on how much I really wanted to collect their records. I'd been keeping my eye on the record release version for the first 7 inch for a while, and wringing my hands over if I should spend the money or not. It was released by REACT Records, and since I have a decent REACT collection, that made me want it a bit more... plus that Sex Pistols cover design and the fact that only 35 of them existed, really helped to force my hand. Fuck. If I didn't buy it, who knows if I would ever get the chance again... so while I was riding that Spiritual Cramp high, I clicked the button on Discogs to order it.

The copy that I received had a note inside to the original buyer, and I assume from the singer, Mike. Thanks for the five bucks bro.

Number 27 of 35.

Eddie Rips Up London

Seems that whenever I post a live bootleg record here, it makes me want to rush out and buy another one of them. After posting about the Megadeth boot earlier this year, it didn't take me long to head over to the Hells Headbangers store and see what I could pick up next.

Iron Maiden live boots are an instant buy for me. I own 10 or 11 Maiden bootlegs, and will not hesitate to buy a new one if the cover catches my eye. I just can't say no to a good looking Eddie cover... especially since the bootleg fan art tends to look better than what Maiden puts on their studio covers.

Back in 2005, I was really getting back in to heavy metal after distancing myself from that style of music through the 90's. Iron Maiden was touring and playing only the early shit, from the self titled album through Piece Of Mind, and made a stop in Massachusetts. At that time, while I was starting to listen to more and more metal, I was not going to see the bands play live... and after the band came and went, I deeply regreted not going to that show. Fun fact, after that Eddie Rips Up The World tour in 2005, I've seen Iron Maiden play every tour since then (with the exception of them touring for The Final Frontier album when they didn't play Massachusetts that time around) for a total of six times... with my seventh time coming up in a couple of months when Maiden hit Massachusetts for The Future Past tour.

All of this is to say that I'm happy to finally have a live boot from that 2005 tour. I love all eras of Iron Maiden, but man, this setlist of early songs is just so good. Makes me wish that they would do another tour playing this older stuff.