Colored Vinyl Heaven

At the start of this year I saw that Scheme Records was releasing an album from a band called Feels Like Heaven. I'd never heard of the band, and if I'd seen this record out in the wild I would have most likely skipped right by it without a second glance... but because it was on Scheme, I figured that I should take the time to check it out.

I listened to a couple of songs and was interested in what I heard, but I quickly noticed that the limited colored vinyl options were already sold out, and being the record collecting bitch that I am, I figured that if I had to settle for the common black vinyl option then I wasn't going to play. I didn't listen to the songs anymore and moved on.

At the end of May I saw that Scheme was doing a second pressing which included a new colored vinyl option, and I figured that now the time was right for me to really check the band out. I queued up the songs again, and felt like a fool for basically ignoring this for the past five months... but also, as we were moving into warmer weather, it felt like the perfect time to get into Feels Like Heaven. Within Dreams has a perfect summer vibe and I've been obsessively listening to this record all month. The band has a great melodic hardcore sound that makes me think of Title Fight and bands in that similar lane and it hits perfectly right now.

Second pressing on green is limited to 208.

Purple Soul Ignition

I guess that Method Of Doubt's latest EP, Total Soul Ignition, technically came out at the end of 2025, but since we didn't see the vinyl release until early in 2026, I'll probably include it as one of my favorite hardcore records for this year. I don't get tired of listening to anything from this band.

When Scheme released a second pressing of the 7 inch, I didn't to hesitate to pick one up. Two options for colored vinyl for the first press, and one new color for the second pressing... as it should be.

300 pressed on purple.

Might as well pull out all three for a group photo.

Smashing Gish

A few years ago I really found an appreciation for The Smashing Pumpkins. I'd been tentatively checking them out around that time, but once I started talking to my friend Sarah about the band, her excitement for them had me tear down any preconceived opinions I had. Going in with an open mind, I was surprised with how much I really enjoyed Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness... but I got so caught up on that one record, and was hesitant to branch out any further. It's like the record was too perfect for me and I feared that listening to any other Smashing Pumpkins album was going to leave me disappointed.

Last year I finally took the leap and bought a copy of Siamese Dream because the vinyl looked so nice. Admittedly, it took me some time to really appreciate that album, but once it clicked, I came to really love it as well.

That left Gish as the only other early Smashing Pumpkins album that I wasn't familiar with. I've heard some people claim that this is their favorite Pumpkins record... and seeing that it was released in 1991, when I'd first checked it in recent years, I'd hoped it had some of that early 90's magic that would immediately draw me in... but it never really held my interest. When I saw that there was a new colored vinyl reissue happening for Gish this year, it brough back memories of my experience with Siamese Dream, and it made me excited to give it another try. I was planning on stopping by the record store last week, so prior to that I started to listen to Gish regularly to see if I really wanted to buy a copy... and very quickly I found that I really enjoyed it.

So when I stopped by Bull Moose to pick up the colored vinyl for Gish, I was surprised that I had another option as well. The metallic foil cover from the 2021 reissue was also in the rack and it looked so good, I suddenly didn't know which one I should buy. I did a quick search and found a few comments that the colored vinyl sound quality wasn't that great, but the foil cover edition seemed to generally get praise for how it sounded... so the metallic foil edition won out.

Motorhead Live 1995

I still check the list of upcoming Record Store Day releases each year, but it is more of an exercise in confirming that the event only releases a bunch of shit that I'm not interested in. When I checked the list this year and saw that there was a new Lost Tapes record from Motorhead, I kind of rolled my eyes at the thought. This would be the 7th in the Lost Tapes series of live recordings from Motorhead in the last 5 years and as someone that isn't usually interested in listening to live recordings, it was starting to feel like it was too much.

Still, at some point I found myself in a Motorhead mood and noticed that this latest of The Lost Tapes was available on Spotify, so for the fuck of it I decided to give it a spin... for science... to just confirm that it was useless. This recording was from Motorhead's live show at the Whisky A Go Go back in 1995... a time period that I'm really not too familiar with for the band. 6 of the 16 songs are from the band's two latest albums at the time, Sacrifice and Bastards... both records that I enjoy, but never really spent much time with... so I was at least interested to see how the live set would feel with a good number of newer songs for that time. Much to my surprise, I loved listening to this. The show was Lemmy's 50th birthday party, and it sounds like they were all having a great time... plus the songs are an absolute blast.

It was a great live recording, but I wasn't set on buying a copy. If I came across one, cool, but I wasn't going to put forth much of an effort. I kind of forgot all about Record Store Day, and found myself in Pennsylvania with some friends for that weekend. When Alex suggested that we check out a record store nearby, I thought it would be fun to check out since the two of us were interested in looking for used DVDs and Blu-rays to grow our newly started collections. I didn't really expect to find any records, but when I walked in and saw the bins for Record Store Day releases, it dawned on me that it was that day. I started flipping through the new records and when I saw the live Motorhead record, I figured that I'd grab it as a nice souvenier of my time in PA that weekend.

Burning Collateral

Last year I picked up the Collateral 7 inch from Scheme Records. I bought it on a whim and was pleasantly surprised. It's a really good straight forward hardcore record, so when I heard it mentioned on the 185 Miles South podcast that Collateral had a new split this year with Burning Lord, I quickly tracked down who was releasing it and preordered it.

Each band does three songs here, two new ones along with each of them doing a cover from the other band's demo. The songs from Collateral are good... a nice continuation of the rough and fast hardcore sound that they were doing with the 7 inch... but Burning Lord really surprised me. I guess that I was expecting it to have a really agressive metallic hardcore sound that leans heavy into the metal, but this is actually good. I can pin down what they sound like... musically maybe they have a bit of Best Wishes era Cro-Mags... I don't know, I just really enjoy these three songs a lot.

Tribe Dream did an exlusive "celtic green" splatter pattern that was limited to 100, so I grabbed that one.

Line Drive

Back in the mid 90's I picked up a 7 inch comp called What Still Holds True. I bought the comp strictly because it had songs from Chokehold and Burst of Silence, but ended up disappointed that those songs ended up on the bands respecive 7 inches that were released around the same time... so the comp 7 inch largely went ignored. At some point years later when I was hungry to discover some 90's hardcore that I'd missed the first time around, I started looking at those old comps for smaller bands that escaped my radar at the time.

Line Drive were a straight edge band out of North Carolina and given the small obsession that I had with collecting Naked Angels years back, discovering that Rob R Rock was also in this band gave me a bit of a thrill. I'm sure that I'd heard the Line Drive name back in the early 90's (outside of the one comp song that I had) through zines or distros, and I know that if I'd seen their first 7 inch, The Few, I would have definitely picked it up... but it somehow never crossed my path at the time. I eventually downloaded the songs and it absolutely fits that early 90's hardcore sound.

The Line Drive stuff has just been hanging out on my iTunes for a while now, and a couple time each year it would catch my eye and I'd hit play... but man, there is something special about just owning the physical record. Since this record arrived in the mail, I've listened to it more in the past couple of months than I have in the past 20 years.

Another Greasy Spoon

After the third Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovell album, Keep It Greasy, in 2016, I started to get a bit bored with the band. I really wanted to love their stuff, but I just didn't find myself wanting to return to it very often. I guess that could be said for a number of newer bands that I get hyped up for and then let their records sit untouched and collecting dust on my shelf for years after their release.

So just as I was getting ready to give up on the Admiral, they came along with Very Uncertain Times in 2019, and they hooked me back in. That record was so damn good and it remains my favorite record from the band... still occasionally getting pulled out for a spin every now and then.

It has been seven years since Very Uncertain Times, and I kind of assumed that Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovell had packed it in and called it a day... so I was surprised when Sandwell hit me up with a tip that Rise Above had their new album up to order. I was in Jersey at the time for a business meeting, but made sure that I could break away to get my order in for the Die Hard version before it sold out.

No doubt, The Trouble With The Shovell is a good record. It just doesn't have that same swagger and attitude that I loved with Very Uncertain Times. Instead, the new record feels like more a flashback to those earlier albums that were a bit slower and dirtier. It's still good, but it ain't going to be my favorite from the band.

Typical Die Hard pressing with only 100 on clear vinyl, and a bonus 7 inch that has two songs that you won't hear anywhere else.

1996 Novacane

My friend Sarah and I have done a few musical projects together over the past few years. Her taste in music and her song recommendations rewired my brain. Honestly, some of the music I listen to today... The Cure, The Smiths, Life Of Agony, Gulch, Lana Del Rey, etc... I would not appreciate if it wasn't for her. So when she suggested we do a monthly project for 2026 that is more album focused, I was obviously excited to jump in and see what music we could discover together.

We talked back and forth for a bit, trying to come up with a theme, and eventually decided that we would focus on albums from 1996 that were celebrating their 30 year anniversary, and with a couple of exceptions they would be full albums that neither of us was really familiar with. We narrowed it down to twelve and planned to randomly pick from our list at the start of each month, focus and listen to it all month and then follow up to discuss and share our thoughts. We are halfway through the year, and it has been such a fun project so far. We have listened and talked about records from Carcass (January), Modest Mouse (February), Beck (March), Sebadoh (April) and Screaming Trees (May) so far, and each month has been an interesting journey. I'd wanted to pick up a record so that I could commemorate the project here on the blog, and honestly expected that it would be Carcass, so the fact that it ended up being Beck was truly shocking.

When Sarah mentioned including Beck's 1996 album, Odelay, in our project, I kind of groaned inwardly. I had zero interest in anything to do with Beck, and I kind of had this closed minded view that gave "drunk white girl at a wedding reception singing 'two turntables and a microphone' on the dance floor" vibe. It made me cringe... so I had already built obstacles around enjoying this full album.

The first few listens I was surprised to find that I enjoyed hearing a couple of the singles (Devils Haircut and The New Pollution) again, but overall I was kind of tired of the record by the time we got to the end of its 52 minute playing time. One of the pieces of the project is that Sarah and I each have to pick a favorite song from the album so that we can build a playlist from our choices, so I was committed to finding something here that stood out to me, and I kept queuing up every few days to listen again... and the more I listened, the more I enjoyed it. I ended up picking the song Novacane, while Sarah chose Lord Only Knows, and in the end I really came to enjoy the entire album (although I do tend to skip Where It's At each listen). It is such a cool vibe throughout the entire record and I never tire of hearing it months later. Truly a great and unexpected discovery.

I was happy to pick up this great looking colored vinyl edition from 2016. In addition to the "Jackass" sticker, there was also a 12 X 12 art print that was included in the Vinyl Me Please reissue, and it makes for a nice package.

Eyes Of Salt

At some point this year I saw a promo card for a new release from War Records. I don't typically pay much attention to these things, and usually just toss them aside, but for some reason I decided to actually read what this one had to say. It was for a band I'd never heard of before, Eyes Of Salt, and it described them as drawning inspiration from bands like Modern Life Is War, Hope Conspiracy and Incendiary. The list of influences certainly had my attention, but the promo card also said that "Eyes Of Salt makes a politically charged statement that confronts the current social climate" and given my frustration, anger and disgust at most things happening today, this seemed like something that I should check out.

This Eyes Of Salt record fits my mood perfectly. Perfect conduit to channel my anger from the US political climate. So pissed off and urgent. In addition to the list of influences that were listed for Eyes Of Salt, I'm also getting a bit of Verse here... and while I'm not usually excited about guest vocals, hearing dudes from Sinking Ships and Ruiner on a couple of songs was actually pretty cool. It is all just so good.

Given that War Records tends to use the the worst vinyl colors and patterns, I was surprised to find that this Eyes Of Salt record was only pressed on black vinyl. Limited to 275.

Cryin' Sunstroke

Sunstroke is one of those bands that seems to enjoy appealing to the record collectors. Special covers that are cool and creative, and stupidly low numbers for pressings... that shit occasionally tempts me into wanting to chase some of those variants. Earlier this year it got me.

The Cryin' Wolves single is a one sided lathe cut 7 inch and was limited to 50... 30 on clear and 20 on black. It only contains the one song, so if you are only here for the music, it probably isn't a great investment...but when I discovered that one was available on Discogs back in March, the collector in me was triggered and I quickly added it to my cart.

Such a great looking record, and I'm really glad that I was able to get my hands on one. Now if I could just have a copy of I Wanna Be Ignored fall into my lap, that would be great.

The Hope Conspiracy

The last couple of years has really opened my eyes to a number of older hardcore bands that I either straight up ignored, or didn't fully appreciate them at the time. Last year I picked up on some late 90's hardcore bands, and this year, thanks to Frostbite, I've been searching through my early 2000's playlist to see what I should spend more time with.

I was recently giving my CDs a quick look to test a new player that my wife picked up, and I saw the first EP from The Hope Conspiracy stuck in there. I thought it had been a long time since I'd listened to it, so I pulled it out for a test spin.

I haven't listened to these songs for about 15 years, and man, that has been a mistake. This kind of shit is exactly what I want to be listening to right now. So heavy... so angry. Lately it seems that most of these new discoveries for me aren't readily available for me to scoop the record on Discogs, and I'm stuck having to play the waiting game... so when I saw this grey vinyl option listed, I jumped on it.

I honestly haven't bothered with any of the Hope Conspiracy stuff beyond the Cold Blue album. Maybe this is the year for me to dive into that.

Dusted Angel

It's always cool to get a recommendation from a friend out of the blue, and even better when it's a good one that clicks right away.

Back in February, I was getting ready to step out the door to clear the driveway from the latest snowstorm, and I had a message from my old blogger friend Chris, asking if I'd heard Dusted Angel yet. I'd never heard the name before, but I put my earbuds in and queued up This Side Of Dirt, and headed out to shovel snow for an hour or so.

I suppose that Clifford Dinsmore from Bl'ast would be the big "ex-member of" draw here, but holy shit, this is so good. As soon as the first guitar riff from Plastic People started to penetrate my ears, I had the biggest smile on my face, and didn't care that I was outside in freezing temperatures moving snow that was already a foot deep. Blending stoner rock, doom and an undercurrent of punk, I loved what I heard and immediately ordered a copy.

This red, yellow and purple blended colored vinyl is limited to only 100.

Psalms Of Brat

Last year I discovered Disembodied, and very quickly became obsessed with the band. I'd ignored them back in the 90's, but on a whim I decided to check them out last year and it was exactly what I needed. Both If God Only Knew and Psalms Of Sheol immediately took over my life, and Disembodied were easly my favorite discovery that year. That obsession hasn't let up in 2026. I started listening to their Diablerie album earlier this year, and I've been desperate to get my hands on the white vinyl version for it... and then along came the Psalms Of Sheol reissue which I apparently needed as well.

I have a few friends that really like Charli XCX, and for a time in 2024 our group chat was full of comments on her new album at the time, Brat. While I was able to enjoy stuff like Lana Del Rey and Lorde, I never really had that same kind of attraction to Charli XCX... well her song Guess was a lot of fun, but I didn't really spend any time with Brat.

While I was still riding my Disembodied obsession, Marcus sent me a message about a new pressing for the Psalms Of Sheol, and the test pressing that pays tribute to Brat. I immediately wanted it. The Brat design is iconic and since Disembodied have done a few of these kinds of rip off sleeves in the past, it was a great choice here... and personally, owning it felt like a good tribute to my Brat friends that know nothing about Disembodied.

After Marcus let me know that this test press existed, I just kept thinking about how nice it would be to own one... and since the label didn't seem to be announcing anything about selling them, I finally just sent Prime Directive an email asking about it. To my surprise, the guy wrote me right back and said that he would check to see if he had an extra. A week later he got back to me, letting me know that he did have one and he gave me a price. Without hesitation I sent the money. I have no idea how many were made of this test, but I am so grateful that I had the opportunity to own one.

I'm not sure if I would have ended up buying the Psalms of Sheol reissue, but since I owned the test press, it felt like a logical move.

The new cover design for the reissue looks cool, and it was only available on this splatter colored vinyl... which at least matches well. 200 pressed.

Things snowballed from there, and since I was buying the new reissue for the LP, it only made sense for me to pick up an original pressing off Discogs.

Three copies of Psalms Of Sheol picked up within a three week span, and there are still other versions that I would have grabbed if they were available.

Orange vinyl was limited to 333.

The Purple Dawn

I never really paid too much attention to The Suicide File back in the mid 2000's. Those were weird times for me with hardcore and I was pretty disconnected from what was happening... so The Suicide File was one in a long list of bands that I never spent much time with. A few years ago I really sat up and started paying attention to some of those bands, and had a stretch where I was obsessed and spinning The Suicide File on repeat. I was looking for colored vinyl from the band, but for one reason or another it was proving more difficult that I expected and I ended up empty handed.

After adding some records to my cart over on Discogs, I started to browse to see if the seller had anything else that caught my eye. As soon as I saw this Suicide File 7 inch, I was excited to finally grab this. I still haven't bothered with the full length album, but these early songs from The Suicide File are so fucking good. One of the best records from 2002.

380 pressed on purple vinyl.

RTA LI

When record labels started pressing stupid amounts of colored vinyl options... frustrating me to the point of giving up collecting multiple versions... Rule Them All were one of the bands that snapped me out of that mindset and had me chasing multiple copies again. I loved the band that much and it brought that collector spirit back a little bit.

With their first 12 inch, An Alignment Of Polarity, I didn't think that I'd make much progress on that collection. The record was only pressed on black vinyl, but it did see a couple of limited covers made in small numbers, so I figured that my chances were small in getting my hands on them.

Last year I was surprised to have the opportunity to pick up the Silent Majority ripoff cover from a Discogs seller, and as I was writing the blog post back in January, I decided to see if anything else had popped up there. I was happy to find someone looking to sell the limited Long Island map cover, and I quickly added it to my cart.

Discogs doesn't have much info on this one... it just lists it as "300 copies pressed", so I was happy to find that it was numbered out of 50. I wonder if I'll have any luck finding a test press for this one and completing the collection.

90 MPH Ordination

I love that 90's hardcore/emo shit so much. I know that my love for 90's hardcore punk covers a lot of ground, but let me live in that sweet spot of Ebullition style with bands like Mohinder, Plunger, Moss Icon and Shotmaker because that style never gets old for me. That sound seems to only live in that timeframe, and I don't know if it could successfully be replicated today. Prove me wrong... please. But one of the bands that I loved from the mid-90's time period was Ordination Of Aaron.

Ordination Of Aaron came out strong around 1994 with a 7 inch, a split with Indian Summer, and some amazing songs that ended up on a few compilations, and I loved that shit so much. For one reason or another I wasn't able to pick up their LP, Immersion In A 90 MPH World, when it was released the following year. By the time 1996 rolled around and I picked up the discography CD, and I heard those LP songs for the first time, I was disappointed. They didn't really move me like I'd hoped they would... plus the youth crew revival was starting to take off at the time, and so I didn't spend much time with those songs and I quickly moved on to chase high fives and stage dives.

At some point last year, I decided to revisit the songs from that Ordination Of Aaron album (it was the 30th year of its release after all, so I was motivated) and I was surprised with how much I loved what I heard. Damn. This is that classic 90's emo stuff that I love. I had those songs on repeat, and early into 2026 when a US seller finally had a copy of the record available, I jumped on it.

Bitter Animals

I'm continually surprised with how many records Tim Singer is turning out these days. Between the new No Escape a few years ago, a new Deadguy album last year, and Bitter Branches... it seems like there is always something new from that guy.

Still, I was shocked to see preorders go up for a new Bitter Branches record from Equal Vision this year. Your Neighbors Are Failures was one of my favorite new releases back in 2022... it surprised me with how good it was... so yeah, I jumped on the preorder for their newest, Let's Give The Land Back To The Animals.

This new Bitter Branches record hits just as hard as the last one. There is so much rage in the delivery of these songs that it feels like it could boil over at any second... and this fits my mood lately, so I've been spinning this record a lot. "But I'm the weird one. I'm obscene. Why are you not screaming?"

Great gatefold packaging. 150 pressed on clear and red ripple colored vinyl.

William, It Was Really Nothing

Going through Tim's collection early on, he had a copy of Hatful Of Sorrow from The Smiths available. It was a version that had a misprinted cover that was missing the black dot separating two song titles on the back cover. I can't even remember what Jeff had priced it at, but at the time I felt that I didn't need to pay an inflated price because of a missing dot, and I let it pass me by. I was buying Louder Than Bombs from his collection, so I should be content with that, right? Wrong. I regretted not just putting up the money and buying Hatful Of Sorrow too, and earlier this year I was sharing those thoughts with Jeff. Much to my surprise, he reached into a stack of records and said that he had an extra in his collection and that I could take it for free. Good deal!

It still shocks me how much I love The Smiths these days, and this collection of singles, b-sides and other recording sessions is so good. Also, I love the way this package looks with the blue cover, lyric sheet and record labels.

So now the only two records I own for The Smiths are compilations. That's cool, but man, I'd really like to track down UK copies of Meat Is Murder and The Queen Is Dead soon.

30 Years Of Absinthe

I'm big on celebrating anniversaries. What was I listening to twenty years ago.... forty years ago? Hell, I'm keeping a list over on Letterboxd to watch and rank all the horror movies that I can from 1976 for a fifty year anniversary challenge. So yeah, I'm always interested in that stuff. I'd already done a couple of posts for the blog's 20th anniversary, so I've been in a celebrating mood... and as soon as we rolled into 2026, I started digging into my 1996 playlist to see what I was listening to 30 years ago.

At the start of my 1996 playlist was the Absinthe EP. I always loved Groundwork, and while Absinthe features a couple of key players from that band, I never really latched on to them the same way. Absinthe seemed a bit more harsh and chaotic compared to Groundwork, and I wasn't too interested back in the day. Seeing how much I fell in love with stuff like Disembodied last year, I approached this record with that mindset and found that I really loved what I was hearing. This thing got multiple repeat plays early this year, and I've listened to these songs more than I have over the 30 years that I've owned the 10 inch.

So yeah, while I do still own the 10 inch that I orginally bought for this record around 1996, it was the black vinyl version. Seeing how much I was listening to this, I couldn't help but feel the itch to pick up the colored vinyl version for it as well.

Free And Pink

I love some late 60's and 70's rock, but in recent years I've found that I don't reach for it nearly as much as I once did. My brain wants more aggresive shit these past few years. However, one cold and snowy weekend at the start of this year, I wanted to pull some of those old albums off the shelf, and stuff like Cream and early Bob Seger had me back in that frame of mind. At some point over the following weeks, I dove into the band Free on Spotify and I was surprised to find that I started obsessing over their self titled album.

The song Lying In The Sunshine had a chokehold on me and I couldn't get enough. It has such a lazy carefee summer vibe and it contrasted nicely with the harsh snowy January weather. I just kept returning to that album and I was surprised with how obsessed with it I had become. I needed the record in my collection and because I was listening to it so much, my brain thought that it would be very cool to pick up an original UK pink label Island pressing from 1969.

I really wanted this record, and I know how fickle my tastes can be, so I knew that if I didn't pull the trigger at the peak of this obsession I'd soon move on and forget about it... then a couple of years from now I'd find myself wishing that I'd struck while the iron was hot. Not wanting to regret letting it pass me by, I found one and jumped on it... making it my second $100 record purchase of 2026, and we were only two weeks into the year.