Metallica x Walmart

Back in 2023 I started another collection whilst on holiday in Florida. Having never having been interested in buying Metallica records on vinyl, I got sucked into trying to collect the Walmart exclusive pressings of the Metallica albums. I picked up the first five albums, and then also picked up the latest ('72 Seasons'). Even though I was happy at the time, after I got home and did some research it turned out that the rest of their cataloge had also been pressed as Walmart exclusives too, yet for some reason I hadn't seen any of those for sale in the stores I went into.

A year later we went back to Florida and stopped in way too many Walmarts to count on a mission to find the later albums, but none of them were available at all. Yet almost every store had at least one of the first five LPs in the racks. I could only assume that they pressed the records in quantities that aligned with each record's popularity. As far as I can tell, a lot of older Metallica fans are only really interested in the first three records, and the ones from the 90s are the least popular. So this seemed to make sense as to why the later records seemed impossible to find. The diehard fans had bought them when they were released, and then it was deemed unneccesary to press any more.

I then found that a couple of the later records were still available from Walmart, but online only. This meant that I could scoop them for a good price, and then have to potentially resort to picking up the others on discogs or eBay. So over the last two and a half years I started picking them off one at a time. I decded that I would wait to post about them until I had acquired them all. It seemed a good idea at the time, but of course now it means I have a shitload of work to do.

I have decided to post them in the order that they were released, rather than the order I picked them up. I did it the other way round when I picked up the first five, but that was more of an interesting story, whilst this is less so.

'Load' (1996). I had never listened to this record prior to two weeks ago. In my mind it was their worst. It's actually not bad.

'Reload' (1997). I still haven't listened to this record. I'll get to it eventually. Of all the records in the Walmart collection, this is the one that seems the hardest to get. I can only assume they pressed numbers that matched with the perceived demand. So this is probably the least popular, so pressed in the lowest quantity... which then ends up making it the most expensive one. This was the last one I got.

'Garage Inc' (1998). Technically this is an album, although it's a compilation of cover songs. In theory I don't mind bands doing things like this, but this one is 27 songs and over 2 hours long. File under 'unnecessary'. I wonder what people thought of this when it came out?

'St. Anger' (2003). Definitely a candidate for 'worst Metallica record' in most peoples' eyes, although I love it.

'Death Magnetic' (2008). I got really into this record about five years ago. It's definitely a strong record, and the first to feature Rob Trujillo.

'Hardwired To Self Destruct' (2016). I like this one because both of the records are on different shades of orange, one lighter and one darker.

It's rare as hell that I actually finish any collections. But in celebration, I spent some time pulling out the whole set for a couple of pictures.

Above are the record sleeves, all in shrinkwrap with the all important Walmart exclusive hype stickers. And below, the records out of the sleeves:

In total there are 12 albums, and 22 discs in this photo. Here's what's included:

Top Row:
‘Kill ‘Em All‘ – 'Jump In The Fire Engine' vinyl
‘Ride The Lightning‘ – 'Electric Blue' vinyl
‘Master Of Puppets‘ – 'Battery Brick' vinyl
‘...And Justice For All‘ – 2 x 'Dyers Green' vinyl

Middle Row:
‘S/T (Black album)‘ – 2 x 'Some Blacker Marbled' vinyl
‘Load‘ – 2 x 'Poor Twisted Orange' vinyl
‘Reload‘ – 2 x 'Flaming Fuel' vinyl
‘Garage Inc.‘ – 3 x 'Fade To Blue' vinyl

Bottom Row:
‘St. Anger‘ – 2 x 'Some Kind of Orange' vinyl
‘Death Magnetic‘ – 2 x 'Magnetic Silver' vinyl
‘Hardwired… To Self-Destruct’ – 2 x 'Flame Orange' vinyl
‘72 Seasons‘ – 2 x 'Yellow & Black Swirl' vinyl

I Against I

I remember abuot twenty years ago realising that I didn't want to attempt to collect Bad Brains records. Someone on HYE had a huge long list of Bad Brains records, which made me appreciate how many versions of all the records there were, and it felt like something only a madman would get involved with. So it's kinda funny that here I am in 2026 and I have just bought my third Bad Brains record in as many months.

A few weeks ago I picked up a copy of 'Rock For Light' on gold vinyl and then not long after chanced upon a copy of the live LP on green on eBay for cheap. Last week I went to eBay and searched for Bad Brains and spotted a green vinyl copy of 'I Against I' with no bids and three hours to go. Three hours later and I sneaked in a last second bid and I won it as the only bidder.

I got this for what felt like a really good price. I think this was a case of a bad listing, where the lead photo of the record was the front cover only, and the item title misspelled 'vinyl' as 'vynil'. Probably these two factors together meant that fewer people spotted this than otherwise may have. So not a great result for the seller, but it made me very happy. You can't beat a bargain.

I listened to this thinking 'I think this might be my favourite Bad Brains record' and then, around halfway thruogh, I decided that I must have dreamt this, and that it is probably is my least favourite. It starts out really strong, with that awesome intro (helpfully titled 'intro'), but after the third song ('House Of Suffering') it just kinda plods along a bit. It doesn't have anywhere near the energy of the previous records, nor the ones that followed it. Ironically though, its one of the more collectible records with a few different colour vinyl options (see Ralf's post). And whilst I still don't really intend to collect Bad Brains records, I feel that I could make an exception for this one if any other cheap copies fall in front of me.

Blood Music

A couple of years ago I picked up a lot of early Sub Pop 7"s, and it has hugely shaped my listening habits ever since. I have discovered a lot of new bands which are all really old, defunct bands. But it continues to be a fun journey, as I picked up forgotten albums for £10 that clearly nobody really knows or cares about anymore. Which brings me on to my latest find...

One of the 7"s I picked up in 2024 was a two song 7" by Green Magnet School. I wrote 'I've enjoyed this record and would definitely seek out more by this band.' So here I am doing just that, with this copy of their debut LP 'Blood Music'.

First observation is that the front cover is pretty terrible. I mean, not only is the picture a mess, it's also thw wrong shape, so there then ends up being thick black borders down the left and right side. This was also only pressed on black vinyl, with most copies having black labels. Aesthetically, there is not much going on of interest.

There's also an insert with photos of the band members, which I like because they all kinda look like they're in different bands.

The band is described as an 'experimental rock band'. I'm not really sure I agree with the term 'experimental', but it's certainly difficult to pigeonhole. At first I was disappointed by this record. It seemed different to the 7" which vaguely reminded me of Helmet. This was a more challenging listen at first. The songs all felt a bit long, and it sounded a bit like a noisy AmRep style band. But after giving it more of a go, I have really come around to it. It's definitely not an instant hit and takes some time to appreciate it, but now I am at a point where I like it more with each play. It's an interesting record for sure. There's a song where they sound a lot like Placebo, which sounds really different when it kicks in, but which I absolutely love.

The moral of the story is that you shouldn't judge a record by its cover. Oh, and that the 90s was by far the best era for music... but we already knew that, right?

Visions Beyond The Ape Cave

Last year I visited RevHQ and, amongst other things, saw a test press for a new release by a band named Birdlegs. It was just a test press so there was no cover art and no information, and despite searching for the band online I found nothing. After a few months I started to question whether I had imagined the whole thing, or misremembered the band name. And then, out of nowhere, the record was announced and up for order. If nothing else, it was confirmation that I wasn't going mad.

The band features Eric Ozenne on vocal duty. You may know him from The Nerve Agents, Redemption 87 or Unit Pride. It's been a while since he did anything, but his voice still sounds the same here. I guess the vocal sounds so familiar that this just instantly brings to mind those older bands. This isn't dissimilar to any of them.

The first pressing was relatively small, with 210 on 'jade marble' and 440 on 'burgundy marble' (which looks almost brown in this pic). The former was only available from Rev directly, whereas the burgundy one was for distros/stores and so has an extra sticker on the shrinkwrap so that people in record shops have a hope in hell of figuring out what the record is.

On the first couple of plays I wasn't overly excited by this. But after a couple of plays it started to sink its hooks into me, and right now it's on the daily playlist. It's only 16 minutes, and is pretty much a perfect hardcore record. Yes, I know that sounds like a big statement, but that's where I am at with this. Check it out and tell me I'm wrong... but not after only two listens.

Duck And Cover

My recent interest in exploring the SST Records catalog a little further led to someone offering me a compilation LP titled 'Duck & Cover'. I'd not heard of it before, and when I looked it up and realised that it was an album of cover songs, I figured it sounded like a pretty pointless record. But with it being on red vinyl, I kinda wanted it anyway.

There are some big names on here - Hüsker Dü, Meat Puppets, Black Flag, Dinosaur Jr, Minutemen and Descendents. All of their songs have appeared on other records, and I own them all. But there are also a bunch of lesser known SST bands, such as Volcano Suns, Saccharine Trust, Revolution 409, Trotsky Icepick, none of which I had heard before.

There's a press release with this copy, which is from somewhere in the UK (presumably a distributor). What they have written is total pointless garbage, but it's cool to have as it is dated 25th September 1990.

I played this once and it was a strange experience. Half the songs I knew really well, the other half I struggled to get through as they were so awful. As I said earlier, a compilation of cover songs is pretty unnecessary, although still a kinda cool thing to own. I suppose in a way I could say the same about all records in the current day and age...

Janitors Of Tomorrow

The past few years I feel that I have started a few new collections. I never seem to really ever finish any collections, but I never seem to learn. A couple of years ago I picked up some records by Gas Huffer. This was a band that I used to listen to back in about 1992, thanks to learning of them via a split 7" that they did with Mudhoney. After picking up their third and fourth LPs in a shop in America, and then earlier this year I managed to get their fifth LP. I was stoked to find these, all in great condition with the comic books included. But I was having no luck in finding the first and second LPs, which are the two that I used to own back when I was 17.

Recently I realised that this was another collection going nowhere fast, but instead of search for the records in the usual places, I did a couple of google searches and found a copy of the first LP for sale in a record store in Ireland. I guess not everyone sells on discogs. The record mentioned it was in shrinkwrap and had the comic book, and was also a really good price, so I took a chance and place an order.

This LP is titled 'Janitors Of Tomorrow' and was released in 1991 as a split release between two labels (US label Empty Records and German label Musical Tragedies). All copies were on black vinyl.

Every Gas Huffer LP comes with a comic book, and this record is where it started. Interestingly, the comic included with this record is printed completely on flimsy newspaper, whereas all the ones that followed had proper glossy, colour covers.

Gas Huffer were always a fun band with a great sense of humour, and this comicbook includes cut out masks of each band member. I wonder if anyone did actually ever cut any of these out? I hope not.

The human brain is an amazing thing. Having not heard this record for well over 30 years, the songs were immediately familiar and I found myself singing along. Why I ever decided to sell my Gas Huffer records I have no idea. But thankfully I'm now only one away from having them all back again. Just the second LP, 'Integrity, Technology & Service' to find and I'll be happy.

Total Soul Ignition

It's great when my friends turn me onto cool bands. I mean, I can't listen to everything, and so people whose opinion I trust are really helpful in steering me to stuff that I might enjoy. Back in 2023 I picked up the 'Staring At Patterns' 12" by Method Of Doubt thanks to a glowing review from Mike at the time that I just couldn't ignore. And here we are in 2026, and after seeing both Mike and Ralf post about the new 7", 'Total Soul Ignition', I figured I would check it out. After a quick search, I then found a UK distro selling copies and placed an order.

The purple is a second pressing and is out of 300 copies. Seems funny to me that they only realised after selling out of the first pressing that purple might be a suitable colour to press these songs on.

I enjoyed the band's 12" a few years ago, and at the time I remember reading about how they had broken up, so this 7" was unexpected. I have no idea what changed and why they decided to come back, but it's good that they did. These four songs pick up where that last record left off, and I can immediately see why the first press sold out so quickly. This is really good stuff and reminds me of other modern bands who are hardcore without being too hard. There's a quote on the bandcamp page which made me chuckle:

Listeners also enjoyed: Four Walls Falling, Supertouch, the sound of their own voice.

Haha!

Dreamy II

Earlier this year I picked up a Beat Happening LP. I'd never really been interested in the band before but got around to listening to them as a part of my journey into the early Sub Pop catalog. 'Dreamy' was their fourth album from 1991 and it turned out that the turquoise vinyl copy that I picked up was quite rare. I've really enjoyed the LP this year, and not long ago I stumbled across a copy of the more common grey vinyl version for sale at a much lower price than it usually sells for, and I couldn't help but grab it.

This is absolutely top condition, with shrinkwrap intact as well as both stickers still present.

This copy also has a Sub Pop singles club subscription form included. A lot of the 7"s had these things built into the folded covers that were printed on the same glossy paper as they were kinda part of the sleeve. But the ones that came with 12"s were just photocopied pieces of paper. They don't look as good, but seem generally rarer. This one is advertising releases from February to July 1991.

As I mentioned in my last post, this is unlike anything else I have ever listened to, but I'm loving it. I'll definitely get around to investigating more of their catalogue at some point.

Feral Sorrow

I don't often bother with demos. I guess historically most were on cassettes, which is a format I have never really had any interest in, so any time anyone mentioned a demo my brain just said 'no thanks'. But at some point last year, I checked out a demo from a new band called Colossal Rains. There were only three songs, but I was really into it. So when a 12" went up for order earlier this year, I was all in.

The band features a couple of members of Blacklisted doing something a bit different. George Hirsch (vocals in Blacklisted) plays guitar and sings in this band, and Dan Sausages (bass in Blacklisted) plays guitar here. There are also a couple of other dudes, but I'm not really familiar with their work.

This record was released by a label called Memory Music (a label owned by Will Yip), and this colour is called 'Koi Pond' and is out of 100 copies.

This has been my daily go to for the past two weeks or so. It's very slow and brooding stuff, as the title alludes to. I'd say that this is ideal late night listen rather than Summer afternoons. A really interesting record with a lot going on, and well worth checking out. Probably my favourite release of 2026 so far (although it may also be the first one I have actually obtained come to think about it).

This Is A Call

Last week (or possible the week before) I was chatting with Nico and he was telling me about some recent Foo Fighters 7"s that he had picked up. He was enjoying the vinyl colours, saying how they looked different to modern records (probably because they weren't pressed at the place that most records are these days). Well, this reminded me that back when Foo Fighters first appeared on the scene, in 1995, I bought their first release. It was a three song 12" on glow in the dark vinyl. I owned it for a short amount of time and then sold it, probably thinking that it was mainstream rock garbage. Well, a little over ten years ago I actually got really into Foo Fighters and listened to all of their records a lot, although I wasn't really too bothered about trying to collect their records. But I was feeling nostalgic for that first 12" single that I bought back in 1995, and went to discogs to see how much it might cost these days. On average it looked to sell for about £25. I then went to eBay and found a copy for auction with no bids and only a couple of days to go. I watched it and ended up winning it as the only bidder for £10. Good deal.

I definitely remember owning this thirty years ago (!). I distinctly remember the front cover, and the photo on the back cover. But I had no memory of the second and third songs, which (unlike the first song) did not end up on their debut album.

I'm not really planning on picking up any other Foo Fighters records. I just felt like I wanted to correct the mistake I made when I sold this many moons ago, as I think that this is a cool record.

No Strings Attached

Recently I've been checking out some SST Records releases by bands that I hadn't been interested in previously. So here's another one. Idecided to check out Meat Puppets and immediately found this pink vinyl copy of their 'No Strings Attached' double LP. It was pretty cheap, and I was sold on it when I saw that it still had the shrinwrap on with the original 'color vinyl' sticker attached.

Technically this isn't really a Meat Puppets LP. It's more of a compilation of songs from their first six full lengths and their first 12" EP. This was put out in 1990 after the band left SST, and it contains 24 songs. It does seem a slightly weird / pointless release in some ways, but I guess things were different in 1990. I imagine that it was probably designed to be a cheap introduction to the band in the hope that anyone who was into it would then buy seven more records. But I'm just guessing.

A bit like the Minutemen record I got into a few weeks ago, this isn't exactly a punk record. The band are described as being punk mixed with b2country and psychedelic rock, which I think is fair. Generally this is really interesting and definitely has me curious to check out more of their records, although I am slightly put off as they have about 20 albums out. We shall see.

The American Scream

As mentioned a few times recently, I've been spending time trawling through the discographies of some older or longstanding record labels, trying to find things to listen to that I had never heard (or heard of) previously. At some point recently, I ended up perusing the Nemesis Records discography. Back in the early 90s I picked up a lot of their catalogue, but quickly realised that some of it was a bit questionable, so it ceased to be a label that I tried to collect every release by. But still, it seems there are some bits that I overlooked altogether, and included in this category is the Final Conflict 'The American Scream' 7". I had never heard this before, but checked it out online and it was definitely worth my time, so then and out of curiosity I looked to see if I could find one for sale. Immedistely I found a green vinyl copy for sale in the UK. Done. Easy.

The green vinyl is very pale. It's a nice colour, although I'm not sure that I captured it too well in this pic.

So when I went to add this to my collection on discogs, I noticed another copy for sale in the UK, and the description said that the vinyl was more yellow than green. So I couldn't help but grab that too. I mean, the brief bit of online research that I did on this seemed to suggest that all colour copies were on green, and all the photos I could find looked like the same pale green. So I took a chance on the yellowish copy.

Apparently this band formed in 1983, and in some form or other are still going. They don't appear to have released any new music for twenty years, but still play out from time to time. I wonder if they still play any of these songs? Anyone know?

Rock For Live

So I never really wanted to get into collecting Bad Brains records. Until recently, all I had was some 90s repress of the first record (originally a cassette). I remember like twenty or so years ago someone had a Bad Brains collection listed on HYE, and it just went on and on and on. At this point I realised that there were a lot of Bad Brains records, and my overriding thought was 'do not go there'. I have most of their records digitally, and figured that this would be ok, especially as there are so many different pressings of their records. Heck, a lot of them were pressed on different labels to, so it always felt like just too much to get into, and even twenty years ago I felt like I was too late to the game. But all it took recently was Dave Byrd posting a copy of 'Rock For Light' for sale on instagram for my brain to immediately think 'I want that!'... and here we are.

So this is a Caroline Records pressing of 'Rock For Light' on gold vinyl. One of the reasons that I wanted this one is that it has two differnt hype stckers on the intact shrinkwrap. I figured I would be highly unlikely to see another one of these is such pristine condition, so if I was ever going to consider wanting this, it had to be this copy.

To the left is a white 'Limited Edition Colored Vinyl' sticker, and to the right is a sticker which proudly announces 'Remixed & digitally remastered by Ric Ocasek, contains 3 bonus tracks'. Probably if I had seen this for sale back in 1991 when it came out I would avoid this like the plague for being a dirty reissue (actually, that's not quite true, as in 1991 I had never even heard of Bad Brains, but you get the point). But in 2026, this feels like a cool version to own.

Only a few days after receiving this, I did a search on eBay for 'SST colour vinyl' and chanced across this green vinyl copy of the 'Bad Brains Live' LP. It was for sale in the UK and it felt like it would sell for a good price. In the end I won it for a little less than a new release costs these days, so I definitely got a good deal. This was put out by SST Records 1988, although this colour pressing is more likely from the early 90s, when SST rerpessed a lot of their records on colour vinyl.

To me this is a more typical live record. It's ok, but doesn't add enough for me to be likely to revisit it very often.

Interestingly, this live LP was reissued a couple of weeks ago for Record Store Day 2026 on a different label and on a yellow/red swirl vinyl, which actually looks ok. If I wanted one of those (which I don't) then I couldn't get it for less than I paid for this green copy, so this helps reinforce that I got a good deal, which is satisfying.

I'm not sure where to go from here. I think I'll try to get other Bad Brains records, but one copy of each will probably suffice.

Cry For Happy

These past few months I have been really interested in going back in time and exploring lesser known bands and releases on some of the bigger and more successful labels. I spent a bit of time going through the SST discography, and recently got interested in Minutemen, Buffalo Tom and Screaming Trees. Those were all bands that I had heard of but never really listened to, so their names stood out. But I also made a shortlist of other bands who sounded interesting, and figured that I would get around to checking them at some point.

One of these bands was Angst. They were a band from Colorado who formed in 1979 (!) and who then played through to the end of the 1980s. I checked them out and was really into it, so I had a look around and managed to find one of their LPs for cheap. 'Cry For Happy' was their fourth LP from 1988. I started here simply because it was available for sale in the UK at a really low price.

Unlike a lot of SST releases, this one comes with a lyric sheet insert.

Oh yeah, and I also found a test press of this LP too for cheap. You know I can't resist those classic Rainbo test press labels.

I'm really, really interested in this band. They originally hail from Colorado, but apparently moved to the UK for a little while, before then going back home to the States and settling in San Francisco. From what I read, they never made much of an impact, but did enough to get signed by SST, and managed to keep going long enough to crank out 4 LPs. They sound at times like a British indie band, and other times a bit like Bob Dylan. Yeah, I know, sounds weird, but it really works. I also read that apparently Frank Black said that Angst would be the band that he would most like to reform and play, and that they were a big influence on the Pixies. A great record for me to have found just before Summer gets going (if Summer gets going this year that is!), and I'm really keen to find the other three LPs at some point.

Another Breakdown

Last year (2025) some colour vinyl copies of Black Flag 7"s started popping up. Quite early on I managed to work out that these were not labelled as colour vinyl, and a lot of the sellers didn't realise that they had them. It was a bit chaotic, but thankfully I had some help and advice from a couple of fellow Black Flag collectors, and I ended up with a few different colours of each. Near the start of the year I picked up four different colour copies of the 'TV Party' 7", and then towards the end of the year I managed to find four colour copies of the 'Nervous Breakdown' 7".

Nobody really knows how many different colours exist, but I figured that if I came across any different colours then I'd probably grab them. Recently I spotted a copy on eBay on a nice orange colour. Turns out it was being sold by one of the fellow collectors who helped me previously, so I was more than happy to take this spare copy off his hands.

This now takes me to five copies of this 2025 repress. I mean, two of them are pretty similar really, but it still counts.

I'm pretty sure that these were all just one pressing, and there are definitely other colours out there. Another collector I know has amassed a much bigger collection of these, including a couple of much lighter browns, a couple of light greys and also a pinkish copy. So plenty more to keep a nerd busy for a long time to come.

Void Live

Back in 2021 I picked up a copy of the newly released Faith Live LP. It was released by Outer Battery Records, and the same label has recently put out a Void Live LP too. And even though I am not a big fan of live records in general, when the email dropped into my inbox at the start of the year announcing this was comnig out, I figured that I couldn't really own the Faith Live LP and not the Void one too, so I headed right on over to the store to buy a copy.

The LP is titled 'Void Live 1982', and each side of the record contains a different live set from (in theory) 1982. Side A has a set from The Wilson Centre in Washington DC on 30th April 1982, from a show that The Faith and Minor Threat also played. Side B contains a set from a show with Negative Approach at the 9:30 Club in DC from 5th December 1982. That said... after this got made and copies got sent out, the label found out that the show at The Wilson Centre was actually from 1983, not 1982. They've said that they will correct this on future pressings, but does this mean that they will change the title of the record too? I guess at some point we wil find out...

I picked up the glow in the dark vinyl, which was only available direct from the label. There were 400 copies made, and they sold out pretty fast, so I'm glad I grabbed one.

I also wanted to take a pic of the glow in the dark mode activated and, even if I say so myself, I think that this photo came out really well:

When the email dropped it said (quote) 'and for you Void super fans we have a limited edition of just 10 test pressings with a unique cover'. Well, I'm not exactly sure that I would qualify as a Void superfan exactly, but when I was in the store to pick up the glow in the dark record, I couldn't help notice that the test pressing was still available, and the price seemed very reasonable. So even though I didn't really want to spend more money, I ended up doing the sensible thing and buying one.

ALso, both of these records came with a copy of the zine. Turns out that the zine is more limited than the records, with not all copies sold coming with one. The label are selling the zine separately for $5. It's worth the money as it's quite thick, printed on quality paper and really well put together.

I couldn't fnid a digital version of this so actually put it on the record player. I have to admit that even though I don't like Live records, this one absoltely smokes. Side A especially is really, really good. The sound quality is great and the energy that comes through is fantastic. Definitely one of the best live records I have ever heard, and I'm really glad I let myself get sucked in.