Strength Of Steel

Anvil were a band that influenced a lot of metal bands in the early 80's. They were outrageous. They were fast. They were heavy. I didn't hear the band until they released their most commercial (and most successful) album, Strength Of Steel, in 1987. I was huge into thrash at the time, and while I enjoyed that Anvil album, it was still kind of disappointing when holding it up next to new releases from Anthrax, D.R.I. and Overkill.

To be honest, Strength Of Steel, isn't a terribly exciting album. There are some fun songs on here, but there are a number of them that are completely forgettable. If the band had amped up the energy and attitude with this record instead of leaning too much on mid paced rockers, things may have gone differently. While it is a fun song, in the end, Mad Dog just gets steamrolled by what bands like Metallica and Megadeth were doing.

The seller had this listed for a low price, so it was too easy to add it to my cart when I was picking up a couple of other records from them.

Speed Metal Freaks

I've been looking to pick up some Rigor Mortis vinyl for a couple years now. I listened to the self titled album a lot last year, and despite having my eye open for a copy, it just never happened. Either they were priced way too high, or it wasn't in the condition that I was looking for...either way, I just couldn't get it done. When I was picking up the Meliah Rage record, and I noticed that the seller had a copy of the Freaks EP, I quickly added it the cart. I've been listening to a lot of thrash this year, and didn't want to fuck around anymore. Just give me the goddamn record.

While it only has five songs, Freaks is every bit the classic that the self titled Rigor Mortis album is. Cattle Mutilation, Chained In The Attic, Worms Of The Earth, the title track... this record rages from start to finish. Top things off with that amazing album cover, and this EP is perfect.

Honestly, I'm pretty damn excited to add this record to my collection.

Surviving Meliah Rage

Back in March, Doug sent me a message letting me know that he'd picked up the vinyl for the first Meliah Rage album. He'd assumed that I owned a copy, but in truth, I only owned the CD. I was jealous that he owned Kill To Survive on vinyl and I didn't, so I immediately set out to fix that.

When I started driving to Boston for shows, I caught Meliah Rage at least three different times in 1990...including opening for Slayer at The Channel. Of course Meliah Rage were from Boston, so it just seemed like they were playing somewhere every weekend. Live shows in small clubs like that was brand new to me, and each time that I saw Meliah Rage, I was just in awe of how powerful they sounded. Kill To Survive is a straight up thrash classic, and while I remember the follow up from 1990, Solitary Solitude, as being a bit weaker, I'm going to have to revisit it to see how it has held up over the past 32 years.

At a time when it seems that every seller on Discogs is asking ridiculous prices for records, it felt good to find a copy of Kill To Survive for only $20. Even though there was a bit of unexpected ring wear on the cover, it still feels good to pay a reasonable price for a classic thrash record.

Show No Mercy Tour '84

I bought a lot of live bootleg records over the last couple of years. Through 2020 and 2021, I managed to pick up twelve live boots. That seems a bit excessive. While I do find them exciting to add to the collection, I find myself questioning how many of those things I really need to buy. As we moved into 2022, I told myself I was going to focus on chasing more important records and not waste my money on those live bootlegs. Five months into the year, and I've already bought two of them. Fuck me.

When I was picking up the Judas Priest live bootleg, I noticed that Hells Headbangers distro also had one available from Slayer as well. Rock Brigade does a great job with their boots, so I took a chance and added it to the cart as well. Recorded live at Ruthie's Inn at the end of 1984, it is surprising how great this audience recording sounds. I bought a number of live bootleg cassettes in the 80's, and typically they are just a wall of muddy noise and distortion, but this Slayer boot sounds fucking amazing. I'm really surprised with how great it sounds. If you have issues with Live Undead and the controversy around if it was actually recorded in front of a live crowd, this bootleg should deliver that authentic live atmosphere. I'm very happy to have a copy of this recording.

Hells Headbangers had a number of colored vinyl options, but of course pink was the correct choice here.

World Vengeance Tour '83

As a young kid just getting into heavy metal, I took the opportunity to record a live concert from Judas Priest that was being aired on MTV. I knew very little of the band, and I can't remember if I'd already grabbed a cassette of the Screaming For Vengeance album with my allowance money, but either way, I definitely wanted a copy of this killer show so that I could get to know more. I grabbed my personal handheld tape deck, sat in front of the television, told everyone in the house to stay quiet, and I hit that record button. That dubbed cassette was one of the coolest things that I had at the time and I listened to that fucker over and over.

While this bootleg doesn't give me a vinyl copy of what would eventually be released as Live Vengeance '82, it is still from the World Vengeance Tour and brings back a lot of memories from that concert that I'd recorded from MTV.

This bootleg is from Judas Priest's live set at the US Festival in '83, and while I wish that they had kept songs like Bloodstone and Devil's Child in the setlist for this show, this is still a strong representation of Priest at the time. The recording is from the soundboard so it sounds absolutely fantastic for a boot. The songs from Side D are from a live show at Hammersmith Odeon in 1980, which was the first time that Priest played Breaking The Law and Grinder live, so it was cool to have this tacked on at the end of the US Festival set.

This bootleg was pressed on a few different color vinyl options...because everything needs to be on a stupid amount of different colors today... but seeing how Screaming For Vengeance is known for the yellow cover, the yellow vinyl was the obvious choice for me.

Doomsday 2022

I didn't pay any attention to the first Warfare record that Triple B released back in 2018. Other than the Mindset LP, the label didn't seem to have too much going on that year that interested me, so the Warfare record hardly made a blip on my radar. When I picked up the new split with Restraining Order earlier this year, the two Warfare songs were enough to make me want to hear more from the band. Instead of chasing down the first Warfare record, I decided to preorder the new one that the band had on the way.

The split 7 inch with Restraining Order and Warfare was hyped with the tagline of "The Return Of Fast Hardcore". Hell yes. That's what I want to hear, and Warfare continue that spirit with the Doomsday album. 10 songs clocking in at 18 minutes. While I do enjoy these songs, there is something that feels missing here. It is a decent listen, but it isn't really igniting a spark right now. Maybe it is just in the shadows of all the other new records that I've been listening to lately, or maybe I expected more from Sam Triple B and ex-members of Trapped Under Ice and Fury. Who knows, maybe it will click more with repeat listens.

229 pressed with the nuclear pattern colored vinyl.

Szex Witchery At Midnight

It has been ten years since I was first introduced to Midnight, and it blows my mind to think that many years have passed. Christ, I know it was more than a few years, but fuck, ten years? I heard of this band through Sandwell and at the time there was a small group of friends that were blogging about cool records that we'd added to our collection. Not many of us are still keeping up with this nonsense, but I do miss checking in on everyone's blogs. Instagram posts don't hold the same interest. Things change with time and people find other interests, but one that stays consistent is Midnight.

Midnight are five albums in with Let There Be Witchery, and they still have that dirty sound of Venom and Motorhead. The first single from the album, Szex Witchery, even has a nice NWOBHM influence running through it. You know exactly what you are going to get with this band. No surprises...and I love it.

It wouldn't be a Midnight album without a little bit of tits and ass in the packaging. Things are a bit more tame this time around, but still, witches didn't dress like that back in my day.

Clear with black haze vinyl is limited to 200, and was only available through the Midnight bandcamp page.

Call Me Little Sunshine

I've approached the last few Ghost albums with low expectations. The band has a lot of haters in the metal community, and I think that it sometimes clouds my opinion of the band. With each new album, I really don't expect to like it, but each time they end up winning me over in the end. Ghost had released a killer single with Hunter's Moon for the Halloween Kills soundtrack at the end of last year, and then to kick of the promotion of the new album, Impera, the band released a video for Call Me Little Sunshine. That was it. I was sold. Those two songs were cool as fuck, and I was excited to see what the new Ghost album would deliver.

You can always count on Ghost to have some great artwork for their albums, and Impera does not disappoint on that level. Papa Emeritus on the front cover totally reminds me of Iron Maiden's Eddie from the Powerslave tour posters. This album looks amazing, and while I generally dislike metallic gold vinyl, I find that it really fits here.

Every time that I listen to this record I'm surprised with just how much I like it. Side A is a damn near perfect run of songs from top to bottom. Side B is great as well, but doesn't pack the same punch as the first side. Man, this record is great.

As with most Ghost records, the packaging is total quality. The 28 page booklet full of artwork and lyrics is always a cool addition.

The gold vinyl came with a slipmat as well. It looks great, but will most likely be tucked back inside the record cover and not see the light of day for about 20 years.

Drug Church

I've seen the name Drug Church on Instagram record posts in recent years, but as an old and stubborn straight edge dude, I never bothered to check what they were about. I had zero interest. That changed when I saw their new album, Hygiene, listed under the preorder section at REVHQ. Visually, that record cover was stunning and I could not take my eyes off it. Suddenly I needed to find out what kind of music was under that cover.

The band had three new songs from the album available for preview on Spotify, and immediately I found what they were doing to be interesting. I don't even know how to describe what they sound like, but it isn't something that I would normally be interested in...yet I kept returning to those songs. I was sold and I knew that I was going to have to buy this record. While Hygiene isn't going to be my favorite release from this year, it will probably be the most interesting.

There were a number of different pressings for this record, but with that record cover, it felt like the obnoxious colored splatter vinyl looked the best. I didn't care that it was the most common pressing. It seemed to be a good match so that's the one that I grabbed.

The Heart Of Rock & Roll

We were in the middle of some dark times a couple years ago. The pandemic had everyone one nervous about what the future held, Trump's hate machine had the nation on the verge of exploding, and in general everything felt fucking bleak. Every day I felt pissed off about something and would desperately cling to any bit of light that made me smile. Music has always been my sanctuary, but it was unexpected to find some comfort in those early 80's MTV hits from my early teen years. I don't know what it was, but those cheesy pop songs were exactly what I needed at that time and I would return to that playlist over and over again throughout 2020.

For the most part, I only cared about the singles from those early MTV bands, and I wasn't interested in checking out their albums. I was sticking with the songs that I was familiar with and wasn't digging for anything new...but with Huey Lewis and the News, I was having such a great time listening to that band that one day I figured that I just queue up the full Sports album on Spotify. Much to my surprise I found that I remembered just about every song on that record, and it was a lot of fun giving it a spin. It was just such a perfect reflection of those carefree early 80's years as kid, and a stark contrast to everything in 2020.

While I found that I really liked the Sports album, I still didn't see myself rushing out to buy a copy. While taking a weekend trip up the coast of Maine, my wife and I stopped into a record store to look around. Not surprisingly, they didn't have much that interested me...but they did have a used copy of Sports. It was in good shape and cheap, so I grabbed it.

My friend Jeff was aware of my strange obsession with Huey Lewis, and coincidently bought me a used copy of Sports the same weekend that I'd snagged one myself. So now I have two copies of this thing. Anyone else want to buy me a copy?

My Single From Tokyo

A couple of years ago I grabbed a bunch of Japanese pressings for some Deep Purple singles. That was some cool shit, and lead me down a road of chasing a number of Japanese singles that year. After that initial burst of activity, I haven't given much thought to seek out any other Purple singles. When I was picking up 7 inches from Krokus and Whitesnake recently, I noticed that they also had the Woman From Tokyo single as well, and given the low price I added it to my cart before checking out.

I love the look of this front cover. From the bright pink strip at the top, to the live shot bathed in red lights and all the kids pressed up against the stage...very cool.

Both songs for this single, Woman From Tokyo and Super Trouper, are from the '73 album, Who Do We Think We Are... and that record is an underrated classic. I probably pull that record for a spin more than a lot of the other Gillan era Purple albums.

Fool For Those Japanese Singles

Picking up that latest Krokus 7 inch totally sidetracked me from other goals, and suddenly the most important thing to me was chasing more singles. The seller had a couple more that caught my attention, so I quickly added them to my cart.

It has been about a year since I added my last Whitesnake single to the collection, so when I found a US seller that had this Japanese pressing of Fool For You Loving available, I didn't hesitate to snatch it up. Sure, I already had the UK pressing of this one, with the glow in the dark cover, but this Japanese one is nice as well. It is a pretty cool live shot, with the stage bathed in yellow lights, on the cover. Man, I love collecting these things and buying this single just makes me want more of them.

Mean Business is a killer b-side song.

Smelly Nelly Single

While I try to keep serious and focused on chasing the important records for my collection, sometimes I just want to buy something stupid and have a good time. Adding new singles to the collection is never a priority, but it is always fucking fun. They are pointless in the long run, but for some reason, I still get a charge out of buying them.

Earlier this year, I picked up a couple of Krokus singles, and that ended up being so much fun that I grabbed a couple more. The good times keep rolling as I couldn't resist also picking up Smelly Nelly single from '81 recently. I'm not sure what it is about collecting Krokus records that has me excited...I think that I just get thrill out of buying records for bands that most people don't really care about. Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think that by the end of the 80's many people gave a shit about this band and their AC/DC inspired sound, and that is probably more so in 2022. It just makes me love them that much more.

German pressing of Smelly Nelly b/w Burning Bones.

Dischord Box

I was a later bloomer when it came to record collecting, and by the time I got serious with it, those early Dischord 7 inches were already way out of my league. I'd never even entertained the thought, but then at some point near the beginning of 2021, I started to think that maybe chasing something like a later pressing of the S.O.A. record might be fun. Yes, it was going to carry a high price tag, but fuck it, I felt like maybe I should make an attempt at a serious serious record like that.

Then a couple months later, Dischord announced that they were releasing a box set with the first six 7 inches, and all those thoughts about chasing a big ticket Dischord record went out the window. A $50 box set is much easier to swallow.

Everyone should know the deal with these six 7 inches, so I'm not going to go into any detail over them. Dischord did an amazing job creating these to mirror the original first pressings. If I'd spent the money or time collecting those original pressings, I might have a problem with this reproduction, but I don't, so I think this set is fantastic.

As a bonus, Dischord included a 7 inch with the unreleased songs from pre-The Teen Idles band, The Slinkees. This is cool from the historical beginnings of Dischord and those early bands, but it certainly is a shaky start. Fun for what it is.

Nice package all around. Of course you know that Dischord was going to do this right. Top quality.

Let The Vio-lence Burn

When forced to pick my favorite thrash album of all time, more often than not, you'll find me awarding the title to Vio-lence's Eternal Nightmare. It is only seven songs long, but it is a non-stop assault from start to finish. Absolute perfection. When I first heard that the band were back together and recording some new songs, I didn't know what to think. Could the band still play on the level of their peers like Testament, Overkill and Death Angel...or were they going to fall on their faces?

The first single they released was a cover of California Uber Alles, and that song was underwhelming as fuck. The band sounded good...Killian's vocals are great...but, man, listening to them cover that Dead Kennedys classic is just awkward. Plus the video with the slight bullshit slant of the "government is trying to control you with mask mandates" during a pandemic, isn't a good look. You'd think that a combo of Vio-lence and DK would be entertaining, but it isn't. Strange way to come out of retirement, and that they did a video for it, but I'm at least grateful that it didn't make it onto the new Let The World Burn EP. After the initial disappointment I approached the next single, Flesh From Bone, with a bit more apprehension but thankfully the band redeem themselves here.

I really enjoy the five songs on this EP. I know that the band was hesitant to release new material 29 years after their last album, but Let The World Burn is a nice addition to the Vio-lence catalog.

2000 Resurrection

I've mentioned it before, but I completely checked out of metal durning the 90's. While it was my life blood throughout the 80's, by the time we hit 1990 and 1991, I was discovering hardcore and those bands just seemed more real and vital to me. While metal was struggling to stay relevent through that decade, I was oblivious to it all. I suppose on some level, I was aware of the big changes like Dickinson leaving Iron Maiden and Halford taking an exit from Judas Priest. Funny enough, as I was starting to get interested in metal again around 2000, Maiden saw Dickinson return to the band, and Rob Halford was releasing the best thing that he'd done in ten years with the Resurrection LP from the Halford band. Metal still wasn't fashionable, but it was starting to make a comeback.

Goddamn. When Rob kicks off this album with the scream of "Resurrection" it gives me chills. The entire album is a monster, ripping with plenty of those Priest vibes that I loved in the 80's. Halford truly captures that metal spirit on this album, and it is no surprise that a few years later we would see him reunite with the rest of the Priest guys as 80's metal nostalgia was heating up.

Resurrection did see a vinyl pressing from the UK when it was released in 2000. That original pressing sells for around $200, so I was happy to see it was getting reissued this year. This reissue sounds good to me, but the packaging is kind of shitty. It is like they lost the original artwork, and resorted to using a smaller image that they blew up to fit the album cover. It isn't very clear and comes across as cheap.

300 pressed on silver vinyl.

Planet Based Diet

I was a huge fan of Voivod back in the 80's. I really liked the raw early albums, but with Killing Technology and Dimension Hatross, the band was on another level. Those two records are fucking perfect. Hell, even Nothingface from '89 was pretty cool. After that though, nothing has really interested me very much. I had some high hopes in the early 2000's when the band reunited with the original singer, Snake, and I've picked up a number of albums from the band since then, but each one failed to make much of an impression on me and was soon forgotten.

I didn't really have much interest in the latest Voivod record, Synchro Anarchy, but I still took the time to check out the video for Planet Eaters. Okay okay...this is a pretty cool song, but would Voivod be able to hold my attention across the entire album? Surprisingly, the answer is very much a yes. Even at almost 50 minutes, this record never feels too long, and I'm engaged throughout the entire thing. I haven't been this happy with a Voivod album since Nothingface. Very cool.

Transparent green vinyl for the US pressing is looking good.

Dead Last

At the start of 2022, I saw something about a new band named Dead Last. I've been super excited over new hardcore bands lately, so I probably would have checked them out regardless, however, seeing that Dead Last had some connection to one of my favorites from the past couple of years, Rule Them All, I didn't hesitate to order their 7 inch.

Dead Last are from Long Island, but they mention that they are inspired by those Boston bands from the 00's. I can definitely hear the influence from bands like Stop And Think and Free Spirit, and this 7 inch makes me want to dive back into that era. It has been a while since I've spent much time with those bands, and Dead Last are a great reminder of some cool shit that I've forgotten about over the years.

Light blue colored vinyl is limited to 100.

To Whatever Alternate Cover (Part III)

I was afraid that this was going to happen. When Triple B did the third pressing of Magnitude's To Whatever Fateful End album, and they changed the cover art from blue to green, I was worried that this theme might continue. Sure enough, with the recent fourth pressing, they change the cover art to purple, and of course I felt compelled to buy one.

I don't know why I felt the need to buy another copy of this record. I have no plans to build any kind of respectable collection for Magnitude, but now I have three copies of this album, so I obviously have no idea what I'm fucking doing. And you know what? If Triple B does a fifth pressing and changes the cover to some kind of red hue, I'll probably buy that too.

Cool looking purple in clear colored vinyl. 200 pressed.

Man, this is such a great record. Magnitude really nail that mid-90's chunky straight edge sound. Hard to believe that this album is already coming up on three years old.

Monument To Nothing

I've been struggling lately to find the time to keep this blog up to date. I've been training to run a 100 mile race in May, and the training lately has been sucking up all of my free time. This is easily the biggest (and dumbest) thing that I'm attempting to run, and I'm fucking overwhelmed by the thought of it, so I've been spending most of my free time on the weekends putting up miles on the road so that I can go into this race feeling like I've done all that I could to prepare. Earlier this year, I was starting to get a little worried that I was going to completely catch up on this blog and have zero records to write about, but then my production here has dropped way off and now I have about 25 records backlogged and waiting for me to write about. Let's try and get this blog back on track.

One of my favorite old school metal records that I picked up last year was the debut from Hallows Eve, Tales Of Terror. I love that record so fucking much, but I also enjoy all of the Hallows Eve records from the 80's, so when I was picking up some other records from a Discogs seller, and saw that they had the Monument album available, I was happy to grab that as well.

The Monument album from 1988 doesn't seem to get the same amount of attention that Tales Of Terror and Death And Insanity recieve, but man, this record is still fun to thrash along to...even the Queen cover song hits pretty hard.

The only problem that I have with this record is that the post office dropped the box off on my steps... in the rain... and I didn't notice it for hours. Water definitely seeped into the package, and while the other records were safe in their plastic sleeves, this Hallows Eve album got hit with some damage along the bottom of the sleeve. Fuck.