Metallica Vinyl Club #3

The third 7 inch from Metallica'a vinyl club saw more delays. What started out as a year long subscription has seen this thing stretch out to a two year process as they struggle with issues for each record that is released. At this point, I'll consider it a win if we receive the forth and final record in the series before the end of 2021.

Record number three is an interesting one for sure. Records one and two were for some live recordings, but with this latest one Metallica deliver an unreleased studio track. I Disappear was originally released for the Mission Impossible 2 soundtrack which was released in 2000, and was during the time that I didn't give a fuck about what Metallica was doing. I actually didn't even know this song existed until I received this 7 inch. It was recorded a few years after Reload, but it still has that Load/Reload vibe. In the right mood, I enjoy those albums, so it is kind of cool to find this song 20 years after it was released.

I Disappear is probably best known for two things...first, it was the last Metallica song that Jason Newsted appeared on, and second, it was the song that triggered the downfall of Napster when Lars Ulrich discovered that a demo version of I Disappear was being shared and he called in his lawyers. A different version of the song ended up being released for the soundtrack, so it is cool to have them release the version that caused so much controversy here.

Metallica make the most of the packaging for this 7 inch and include a cool booklet showing the storyboard art for the video that was shot for this song.

Once again, Metallica release something special for the fans that have subscribed for this vinyl club. Worth the money spent.

Still Burning

I don't usually expect Spotify to really hit the mark when it recommends music to me, but it certainly caught me off guard the other day and it surprised me. I was spending the morning listening to some newer hardcore bands (i.e. from that past 15 years) and I was absolutely loving it. Robot Whales, Foundation, Modern Life Is War...man, it had been a while since I'd given that stuff a spin and I was having a blast diving into those bands again. That was when Spotify threw me a curve ball when it tossed a song by Incendiary into the mix before I was able to queue up the next album I wanted to listen to.

I'd never heard of Incendiary before, but I think that when I saw the name I got them confused with Inclination and Judiciary...and Spotify had been pushing those two bands on me whenever they could, so I reached for my phone to skip the song. Before I could hit play on the next album I had queued up, the Incendiary song caught my attention. Wait. This wasn't what I was expecting. They reminded me of the recent wave of crossover bands like Mindforce and Dead Heat, and the vocals kind of had this Rage Against The Machine rhythm to them. I was shocked at how much I was digging the song, and I immediately dove in to check out the entire Thousand Mile Stare album. Fuck me. This shit was tight. I listened to that album three times that day, and knew that I was going to have to track down the vinyl.

I was surprised to discover that this album came out four years ago, and I'd somehow never even heard of it. Sometimes it pays to pull my head out of my ass and not be so quick to write newer bands off.

Australian Powerage

Last year I made some great progress with my AC/DC collection. The band released a new album at the end of the year, and I spent a lot of time leading up to it grabbing pieces of their back catalog. Things haven't been as productive on the AC/DC front this year, but I've actively been on the hunt for the Australian pressing for Powerage for a while so it feels good to finally cross this big boy off my list.

Powerage was AC/DC's fifth album released in Australia, and the first to not carry the kangaroo logo on the record label...plus it was the first time the cover art was the same as all other international releases. Because of these things I assumed that I wouldn't have to sink as much money into this record as I had the first four. I was wrong. I guess that any first press Aussie pressing for AC/DC is going to hit the savings account hard.

I'll often cite Powerage as my favorite AC/DC record, so I was very excited to finally add this one to the collection.

Apparently the European pressing has an earlier mix than all others and has a slight variation in the tracklisting by adding Cold Hearted Man and dumping Rock 'n' Roll Damnation, so I'm obviously going to have to chase that one down as well...and let's not forget about the red vinyl Canadian pressing or the New Zealand one with the different color text on the cover. I need them all.

Seized Up

I was listening to a lot of Good Riddance earlier this year, and when I saw an article over at No Echo for a new band that included one of their members, it had me curious.

With a roster that includes the vocalist from Bl'ast, the bass player from Good Riddance, and the drummer that used to play in The Nerve Agents, I was interested to see what Seized Up could deliver. Within 10 seconds of checking out their latest EP, I knew that I was going to be tracking down a copy of this 7 inch.

The three songs on this EP are great. At times I can hear the Bl'ast connection, but for the most part this record is just quick and catchy shots of hardcore. Apparently the band also released an album last year during the pandemic and didn't waste any time to follow it up with this 7 inch. I've been chasing down lots of newer hardcore bands this year, so I'm happy to add Seized Up to the list.

I ordered this record direct from Cursed Blessings and the number of stickers, patches and buttons they included in the package is impressive.

Cursed Blessings also wrote out the bandcamp link and download code on the invoice that was included. That must have been a pain in the ass if they had to do this for each order. Dedication to customer service!

Echoes Of A Distant Time

It has been five years since I was first introduced to Seven Sisters. At the time they only had a 7 inch and a demo out, and that shit blew my mind. Those songs reminded me so much of the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal, and I absolutely loved it.

When it was originally released, The Warden demo was only available on cassette or by download on bandcamp. Earlier this year those songs were bundled with the two songs from the 7 inch and finally pressed to vinyl with the Echoes Of A Distant Time comp for the band. I don't know what my problem was, but I paid no attention to the record when it was available to buy. Thankfully, my friend Jeff had my back and he surprised me with a copy.

This record was a nice reminder of how much I enjoyed this band. Perfect timing as well as it looks like they have a new album due out later this year. I may have to jump on preordering that one.

Dead Heat With Mindforce

The Mindforce / Dead Heat split was originally released as a 7 inch back in 2018. I was unaware of the record when it was released and it took a year or so before it popped up on my radar. I wasn't familiar with Dead Heat at the time, and wasn't feeling their side of the split when I first heard it, so I ignored the entire record. It took me until 2020 to finally recognize how good Dead Heat were, but by that time the split 7 inch with Mindforce was dropping on Discogs for over $40. I wasn't paying that price for a newer record that was only pressed on black vinyl, so I figured that I'd wait until the hype died down and the price was more reasonable.

When Triple B announced that they were doing a reissue of the Mindforce and Dead Heat split, I figured that this beat waiting around for the original 7 inch to show up at a decent price. The reissue moves up to the 12 inch format and gives us a different look with the cover art. I dig it.

I like the look of the red and black split colored vinyl, so I'll happily take this one over the shitty looking splatter option. 500 pressed.

While I was picking up the split with Dead Heat, I figured that I might as well grab the new pressing of Excalibur. The 5th pressing changes things up again for the cover, and goes with a nice looking white and blue colorway. The vinyl on the other hand looks bland. It was supposed to be a tan and blue mix, and the mockup looked good...the actual record on the other hand misses the mark.

This pressing includes the Man Of Peace flexi, this time on white plastic.

This is the third copy of this record that I now own. I still love this record, so I have no problem owning multiple copies.

Seventh Bootleg Of A Seventh Tour

Iron Maiden have a ridiculous number of live albums. Since reuniting and releasing Brave New World in 2000, Maiden have basically released a live album after each tour. When I picked up their latest for the Legacy Of The Beast tour, I found myself wondering how many times I'll actually listen to it before I die. Based on the number of live albums that Maiden have, and combined with how little time I actually spend with live albums, I'm guessing that if I listen to that thing five times it will be a surprise...yet, I can help but buy them when the band releases them. As if the number of official live albums weren't enough, here I am still hunting down live bootlegs.

This latest live bootleg from the Seventh Son tour brings my count up to eight for Maiden (nine if you count the live CD from the Piece Of Mind tour). Bootlegs these days look amazing and even if they sounded like shit, I'd still feel compelled to buy them based on the album artwork alone. The last few that I've picked up have ended up getting framed to hang on the wall because I love the look of them so much. This latest one may end up framed as well.

The sound quality for this live show in Indianapolis from 1988 is great for a bootleg. Such a cool selection of songs. While this tour did get an official release with the Maiden England '88 album, and that setlist is stronger with the inclusion of Still Life and Killers, this is still a cool live set to own. The bootleg quality makes it sound raw, and Bruce's between song banter is always entertaining.

Desperate Measures Record Release

There was a time when I thought that I wanted to collect every pressing for every Youngblood release. The excitment for that chase has cooled considerably over the years. There are, however, still some cool records that I'm excited to pick up when the mood strikes me, and when I was recently grabbing a few records from a Discogs seller, I couldn't resist adding one more to the cart.

The record release pressing for the Desperate Measures album, Never Enough Time, has always caught my eye with that great looking cover. A gorilla hanging loose and crowd surfing? Hell yes. Give it to me.

This album is a lot of fun and I probably listen to it more now than when it came out. 300 pressed for this bad boy, so it is easy to pick up for a decent price.

One From 1993

Watermark Records seemed like a big deal back in the early 90's. The label was run by the Jordan brothers from Encounter, and those two guys just seemed to be involved with all kinds of good shit at the time (including one of my favorite straight edge records of all time, the Reveal 7 inch). My nostalgia had apparently built up Watermark as bigger and better than they actually were, because as I look back now, the label only realeased a small handful of records that I had any interest in... including the two Lincoln 7 inches, plus records from Flagman and Threadbare. Looking back, Watermark seems kind of inconsequential, but I swear at the time they seemed massive.

Another record that was on the Watermark label was from a band named One. The Remain 12 inch was released in 1993 and it came and went without much fanfare. At the time, a friend of mine had the CD and I just dubbed a copy to cassette. I liked it, but apparently not enough to run out and buy a copy for myself. It had probably been over 25 years since I'd even thought of that One EP, but when I was picking up a few records from a Discogs seller and I saw they had one available for cheap, I was excited to grab and revisit it. I mean, you can pick this thing up for under $4 so why not.

This One 12 inch is all about that melodic hardcore sound that was huge at the time. I've enjoyed discovering this thing again, and realized that Jay Demko was in the band which is kind of cool since he was also in Lincoln and Junction...and I loved those two bands. Today I just noticed on Discogs that the band also released a 7 inch back in '91 that I never knew existed, so I'm obviously going to have to add that to the Want List.

30 Years Down By Law

I was recently going through my list of records that came out in 1991. It is the 30th anniversary for records that were released then, and I've been drawn back repeatedly to that year to spin them again and again. In 1990 I was straddling the line between heavy metal and hardcore, but by '91 I had cut most of those metal ties and it was hardcore records all day everyday. Because of this, I have a lot of nostalgia for those records from Born Against, Billingsgate, 4 Walls Falling Mouthpiece, etc. That shit was the foundation for hardcore for me. Anyway...I was spending a lot of time in 1991 and really wanted to pull out my copy of the first Down By Law record...and I was kind of shocked to remember that I only owned it on CD. I needed to correct this and get it into my record collection as soon as possible.

I can't remember if I heard Dag Nasty or Down By Law first back in the day, but I'm leaning towards Down By Law. I mean, I loved this record when I heard it and I feel like if I was familiar with Dag's Can I Say at the time, I might have been a bit disappointed in the first DBL album...but I wasn't and I listened to this thing a lot. Revisiting the record 30 years later, it is still a ton of fun.

Pretty nice that even though this record hasn't seen any kind of reissue, and the only vinyl available is the original pressing from '91, that you can still pick this up for cheap.

Drug Test / R'N'R

Earlier this year I spent a short time obsessing over forgotten hardcore bands from the mid-2000's. At that time I felt compelled to pick up another copy of the Drug Test 7 inch for some reason, and in the process I realized that I'd never even heard their split with R'N'R. Time to fix that.

I probably skipped this record back in 2005 because the Drug Test side totals just over two minutes, and I've never been too excited over R'N'R. It seemed like I wouldn't be getting much in return at that time, so I passed on it. When I was picking up a few records from a Discogs seller recently, I saw that they had the split available for cheap, and 16 years later it seemed like a good time to finally pick it up...however, after checking the sales history for this record and seeing that it has sold for 75 cents a few years ago, I now feel like I may have overspent at $5.

This is a cool little record from a time in hardcore that it seems that most people overlook (I know that I tend to). The R'N'R songs are okay, and there are only two of them so they are finished before the vocals can start to get under my skin, and the Drug Test songs are a nice addition to the ones from their Needle In Your Neck 7 inch. 203 pressed on white vinyl.

Inhumane Harvest

I don't listen to a lot of death metal, but in those instances when I want something a bit more over the top and mean, Cannibal Corpse deliver. I really only listen the Corpsegringer era of Cannibal Corpse, and I own their last four albums. While I like them, they don't get a ton of playing time, so when the band announced that they had a new album coming out in 2021, I thought that I might skip it. As soon as I saw the cover art for Violence Unimagined I changed my mind and knew that I needed to own it.

The band released the album with two different covers, with one being more subdued than the other. For me, only the craziest, goriest option would do. This thing is so wild and over the top. I love it.

Musically, this is exactly what you'd expect from Cannibal Corpse. I've only listened to it a few times but I aleady think it might be better than their previous record, Red Before Black. In classic Cannibal Corpse fashion they released a gruesome video for the lead single off the album, Inhuman Harvest. Such a great introduction to the album.

The album comes with a great 28 page booklet.

The booklet is amazing, with each song getting it's own double page spread with lyrics and artwork.

The insert for the download code comes with the regular album artwork, and while not as great as the uncensored cover, it still looks pretty cool.

Three Penny Test

After buying a couple of records from Chris, it took him a little while for him to mail them out. It's cool...I was in no rush, but he mentioned dropping in an extra record as a gift. I wasn't expecting too much, so I was quite surprised when the package arrived and it included an additional test press. This one was for Troubleman Unlimited #34, the self titled Three Penny Opera album.

When Chris announced that he was selling some records to help pay off some bills due to financial issues as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, I took a quick look at what he had listed in his collection on Discogs. One of the records that caught my eye was the Three Penny Opera test pressing. I almost asked him about it and made an offer, but at the end of the day, I figured that I'd already spent too much on records recently...so it was a nice surprise to find that he tossed it in for nothing.

The funny thing was that I didn't even own a regular pressing of Three Penny Opera's second album. It felt wrong to only own the test press in a simple dust sleeve, so I set out to correct the issue right quick and I scooped one off eBay.

Three Penny Opera were from the late 90's and was Matt Deline's band after Shotmaker broke up. With Matt's vocals and the band's quirky 90's emo sound, there are obvious comparisons to his previous band, but I don't know...Three Penny Opera is less chaotic and has a bit of a smoother sound that I like a bit more at times. Both bands were just so damn good.

Test press and regular press!

Shot Tester

I don't typically bother with old school test pressings. You know, the ones where the only packaging is a simple dust sleeve. No, I like my test pressings packaged in a special sleeve. For me, it is all about the presentation. It has to catch my eye, and plain test pressings don't really interest me. There are exceptions of course, and when Chris from Unwavering Spirit reached out to me about selling his copy of one of my favorite mid 90's hardcore emo records, I couldn't resist and had to take him up on it.

I just loved those Shotmaker records from the 90's. The band fell into the hardcore emo tag before it became a dirty word. Their songs were wild and at times it sounded like the singer was on the verge of blowing out his vocal chords...there was chaos and melody, and it completely defined the sound of the time. I was lucky enough to catch them play live in a small backroom of a Harvest health food co-op around Boston, and it felt like I witnessed something special. Man, I'm very happy to own a test press for The Crayon Club. I'm sorry that you had to let it go Chris, but know that it is in good hands.

I'm taking lessons from the master of test press posts, and posting a picture of the test press with the regular cover to make the photo a bit more interesting.

Record Release On The James

The month of March had already proven to be an expensive one for me when it came to buying records. I'd already picked up a heavy hitter from my Want List, and it seemed like I was buying something through Discogs every other day. It was getting to the point where I needed to hit the brakes and let things cool down for a while...but then Chris from the old Unwavering Spirit blog hit me up to say that he was stuggling with bills due to the impact of COVID-19 and had to sell some records to help make ends meet. Wanting to be a good friend, I dug a little deeper into the savings account.

One of the first records that he was looking to sell was the record release pressing of the Down To Nothing album, Life On The James. I already had the record release version for The Most, so it seemed only logical for me to jump on this one too.

I've kind of rekindled my love for Down To Nothing this year. When I agreed to buy this version of Life On The James, I thought it would be nice for the collection, but I wasn't exactly stoked on it. I remembered being a bit underwhelmed with the album when it was released, so even though I was was happy to buy this record release copy, I didn't find it terribly exciting. Hell, I'd barely given this album much of listen since 2013/2014. Listening to the record today, I'm absolutely stunned by how much I'm enjoying it. This album is a blast, and as we move into warmer weather, I feel that this record is going to be my soundtrack for the summer. So happy to have grabbed this when I had the chance.

Ravening Champion

One of the releases from 2020 that was looking forward to the most was the new album from Eternal Champion. I was so stoked for this record that I was prepared to buy the new novel that Jason Tarpey was having published as well. By the time I got in for the preorders, I'd completely missed out on the colored vinyl options that the band was selling, and I was so disappointed that I had to settle for the black vinyl pressing that I didn't bother with Tarpey's fantasy novel. I just grabbed the black vinyl and checked out.

I ordered the new Eternal Champion record back in October, and after multiple delays my copy finally arrived 6+ months later. You can say one thing for sure, EC definitely deliver some great traditional metal, but they also serve it up with some dragons and boobs. That cover is epic...although I'm not sure what happened to the arms of that woman in the foreground.

While Ravening Iron was pressed by No Remorse in Europe, the band self released this in the States on their new label, Sword Worship. I obviously decided to order from the band and save on overseas shipping,

Nice touch with the personal thank you note from the band on the cardboard packaging.

Generation Aliens

Earlier this year, I ended up watching some youtube video of a few guys discussing American heavy metal bands of the early 80's. Talking about bands like Manowar, Armored Saint, Omen, and Lizzy Borden had me obsessing over this time period and wanting to add some of those records to the collection.

With their over the top image, plus being on Metal Blade, I was totally drawn to Lizzy Borden as a kid. The front man looked like a lunatic as he was wielding an axe on stage and hacking up scantily clad women and spitting their blood. The band was basically Alice Cooper on stage for us 80's kids that missed out on those theatrics from the 70's. Plus, the band had the heavy metal chops to back it up.

I've been lusting after some Lizzy Borden vinyl for a while now, and while I figured that I'd be starting with their first album, Love You To Pieces, when I saw the Menace To Society record for a good price on eBay, I figured that I'd go in that direction instead. Man, I'd forgotten how much I love this record, and I got ridiculously excited when it arrived in the mail. I got a serious wave of nostalgia holding this record, and I had a moment when 80's metal records became a top priority for collecting.

Got to love it when records come with the original merch insert.

The Dividing Line

Digging into the New Age Records releases from the past few years, I think that the record from The Dividing Line is my favorite.

Again, I had been caught up in the mindset that New Age no longer released records that I was interested in, so I was ignoring anything that the label did. This was a stupid mistake, as I definitely missed out on some cool shit. The Turn My Back On The World 7 inch from The Dividing Line is some rippin' straight ahead hardcore. Probably every song on here is about the straight edge, plus they use the word "fuck" in every song as well...combining these two elements makes for a winner in my book. Seriously, this record is great and if I was going to put in the work to collect multiple copies of a New Age release, this would be the one I would chase.

200 pressed on white vinyl.