Raise Demos

Back in 2021 I bought a Swervedriver record. It was an early recording of an EP, which is (to this point) the only Swervedriver record that I owned. Enjoying that record five years ago, I also got into their debut LP 'Raise' and figured that at some point I would pick up a copy on vinyl. Well, five years later and I still don't have one. There are a lot of copies out there and it isn't really tough to find, but it does seem difficult to get one in good condition and for a reasonable price. So the hunt continues.

Anyway, a couple of months ago I was working away and I got an email notifying me that Outer Battery Records were releasing a demo version of the LP on limited colour vinyl. I figured that this would be a great way to own the songs on vinyl until I find a good condition original pressing, so I put an order in quicksmart.

There were 400 copies on red vinyl, which sold out pretty fast. The remaining copies are on silver vinyl. I'm sure it will also get repressed after those sell out too.

The original album, 'Raise', is a really great record. And even though these songs sound like slightly rougher versions, they're not hugely different. The thing that irritates me about this record, however, is that it's the same songs as the final LP, but on here they are in a completely different order. It just doesn't feel quite right. But maybe that's just me.

I also bought a test press. Mainly just because the price seemed pretty reasonable. I figured that if I regretted the decision later I could probably easily get my money back. It comes with a custom cover, which is a nice touch.

Artificial Horizon

It feels like there's another Lungfish repress appearing every couple of months. As soon as I buy one, another one appears. Well, even though that's how it feels, it turns out it's been ten months since the last one I bought (which was actually two). Back in January I added two more and said at the end of that post:

By my calculation there are now only two more Lungfish LPs that have not been repressed... the 7th LP 'Artificial Horizon', and the the first LP 'Necklace Of Heads'. I'm going to guess that both will be repressed by the end of the year, so let's see what 2026 has in store.

Well, it turns out that I was half correct.

'Artifical Horizon was originally released in 1998 as Dischord 115. I'm not sure how many copies were pressed back then, nor whether it ever got repressed in the years that followed, but I can see that it seels for a reasonable amount of money. So a repress is probably long overdue.

This means that I now own eleven Lungfish LPs, and there is only one more that hasn't received the reissue treatment, which is the first LP 'Necklace of Heads'. I have always found it odd that the ten albums repressed so far have been in a random order, and here we are presumably ending on the debut. Originally the first LP was a split release between Dischord and Simple Machines, so perhaps that has something to do with it. Actually, come to think of it, I'm not sure that any Dischord half numbers have been repressed, so maybe it won't be repressed at all. We'll probably have to wait until 2027 to find out I guess.

Adult Hysteria

One of my favourite releases this year has been the latest Ceremony album, 'Tell Ne Your Dream' which has reignited my interest in the band. So of course I started looking at what other Ceremony records were out there that I didn't have. I quickly found two 7"s for sale in the UK that both came out around the time that the 'Zoo' LP was released, circa 2012.

The first 7" contains two songs - 'Hysteria' (the first song on 'Zoo') and 'I'm A Bug' which is exclusive to this 7".

The second 7" also contains two songs - 'Adult' (the first song on side b of 'Zoo') and 'Start Over' (exclusive to this 7").

I love how these look with the consistent layouts, and it's cool that they are both on clear vinyl. Discogs tells me that there are 200 of each of these on clear, with all the rest of each being on black. Ultimately I mainly bought these for the collection rather than the two exclusive songs, which now seems to be mainly made up of clear vinyl. Of the thirteen Ceremony records I own, ten are on clear. Gotta love consistency.

Dynamite

These days I'm always behind the curve, so it seems. I was recently offered this blue vinyl copy of the Dynamite 'Settle The Score' 7" and thought I was keeping myself up to date... only to realise that it's been out for over a year. I clearly don't pay enough attention as both Mike and Nico both blogged about this record last year.

If you had to guess where this band came from, you'd be forgiven for opting for somewhere on the east coast of the US. But surprisingly, these guys hail from over here in the UK, and just down the road from me (although admittedly a road I can rarely be bothered to travel).

This 7" was a split release between UK label Northern Unrest and US label Scheme Records. The blue vinyl is the Northern Unrest version limited to 100 copies.

I agree with Mike's opinion that every aspect of this is reminiscent of a Youngblood Records release. Listening to this today, a day on which it has been raining non-stop and getting dark at 6pm, this totally transports me back to 2004/05. I remember spending the winters of 2004 & 2005 clocking up a lot of miles driving to various northern cities, mainly during the week after work, to see bands of the time with crowds full of young kids and energy and excitement. Sometimes its great when things don't change and you can find comfort in what you know. This is UK straight edge done really well and even though I'm twenty years older, I'm all in for this. Hopefully at some point I'll actually leave the house and see them play live.

Gish

Last weekend I found myself in an actual record shop. It's very rare for me to ever go into record shops over here in the UK, as there aren't really any that are anywhere near to my house or that are good enough to warrant a two hour journey to visit. But last weekend we had three hours to kill in Kingston whilst the Apple store replaced Anna's iphone battery, so at some point we ended up in Banquet Records. Generally it doesn't have much that interests me, but I did find this 35th Anniversary pressing of the first Smashing Pumpkins LP, 'Gish', which I couldn't resist taking home.

With hindsight, I'm not sure this was a particularly smart buy. As I type this, there are currently 196 copies of this for sale in discogs. I'm guessing that there must have been at least 10,000 copies pressed, maybe more. Which means that this will never be hard to find, and probably therefore will never even be worth the £25 that I paid for it. Not that collecting records is about value, of course. But it's always nice when you buy something and just know that you could easily get your money back if you changed your mind.

Aside from the fact that this may turn out to be worthless in future, I'm still happy to have a copy of this record at last. I always liked this LP, but I never quite got around to buying one, as the original pressings are all on black vinyl. I'd like to get a first pressing copy at some point, so until then this will suffice.

Mil-Spec's Lonely Hearts Club Band

Mil-Spec toured over here in the UK last month. As much as I would have liked to see them play live, the closest show to me was at a venue that is not particularly easy for me to get to, and I decided that I would stay at home rather than face the journey. A friend reached out to let me know that they had a tour version of the latest record, and the offer was there to pick one up for me. Whilst I had already picked up a copy of the record earlier this year, and am trying to hold off on buying multiple copies of things these days, the allure of a limited tour version proved too much.

The tour cover is the often seen 'single piece of card folded over the regular record cover', but unlike most, this isn't a crappy photocopied piece of paper. They obviously gave this some thought and went with a Sgt. Pepper rip off design, which is quite fitting for a UK tour I suppose. It's well thuoght out and well executed, and actually looks better than the proper cover with the huge sandwich.

Take Three Painkillers

I picked up three 7"s on Painkiller Records recently. This was purely coinsidental. Each came from a different source, but I decided to bundle them together in one post in an effort to catch up on here and not feel so constantly behind.

The first 7" was from a friend, and is a copy of the A-Team 'Clusterfuck' 7". This was actually Painkiller Records number one, originally released back in 2003.

This is a second press copy on blue vinyl, hand numbered out of 100 copies on the b-side label.

I haven't listened to this band for a while, but I always liked them. Then again, I really like that early 00s era of hardcore generally. So many good bands and records, many of which are kinda forgotten about today.

The second record I picked up is a 7" by a band called Beyond The Pale. I hadn't heard of this band before, and looking online it feels like they have a pretty low profile. But this 7" rules. It's total Infest worship, done really well.

This 7" contains 11 songs, but only one of them is over one minute long. Six of them even clock in at under 30 seconds. For such a short record though, this is a really interesting listen. 330 copies on gold vinyl.

This actually came out in 2023, and I have no idea if this was a one off fun project for someone, or if this is an actual band. But I would definitely listen to more of this. I hope they're still going and about to bust out something new soon.

Finally, I picked up this Heavy Discipline 2019 Demo 7".

I already own two other records by this band, both of which sound like classic Boston hardcore. I had no idea this 7" existed, even though it came out before either of the 12"s. Apparently there were 330 copies on white vinyl.

After putting this post together, I'm unclear if Painkiller Records is still going. The last release was in 2023, which is now three years ago. And whilst these days three years goes by in a blink and isn't really a long time, it would represent the longest gap in the label's history, so the signs aren't good. I really hope they're just going through a dry spell, but no doubt time will tell.

Maker of Rules

About a month ago I was posting about an Urban Sprawl 7" that I picked up recently. As I was adding it to discogs I decided to see what else the label, Convulse Records, had put out, and a few second later I was checking out a new release by a band called Bad World. Immediately I was loving it and looking at what was available to buy.

This 7" is titled 'Maker of Rules' and was released in June this year. This 'clear with green, orange and black splatter' is the rarest version, being out of 100 copies. I managed to find a copy in the UK which made it an easy one to pick up, which made a nice change.

To me, this sounds just like early No Warning. Interestingly, the second song features Ben Cook on vocals, although somehow the first song sounds even more like No Warning than the song that has the singer of No Warning on.

This is a really great hardcore 7", and I can't stop listening to it at the moment. I really hope that they come out with a full length at some point.

Louder Than Love

The more time passes, the more that I think that Soundgarden are one of the best bands ever. Sure, I've enjoyed them for thirty plus years now, but since I truly started to appreciate 'Superunknown' for the genius that it is a couple of years ago, my opinion of them only continues to grow.

A couple of weeks ago I stumbled across this 2016 orange vinyl repress of 'Louder Than Love'. This is their second full length from 1989 and, prior to this repress, the only colour vinyl copies that existed were either green vinyl or red vinyl promotional copies (which now sell for a lot of money). This orange pressing made owning a colour copy much more affordable.

When this came out I decided that I didn't need it, but as the years have rolled on by I have noticed that it has become harder to find, and the price has started to go up a bit. So when I saw this copy on eBay for roughly half the usual price, I watched it. Once again, eBay UK came good.

When I went to add this to discogs, I discovered that there were also two further orange vinyl pressings made in 2019 (one in the States, one in Europe). I have no idea if these further pressings look the same as this one, or are slightly different colours. Heck, maybe one day I will find out.

There's A Knife In My Back

Trying to collect Revelation Records releases is a job that will never ever be complete, not by me or anyone else. But that doesn't dissuade me from stupidly trying.

I recently picked up this black vinyl copy of the Civ 'Cant Wait One Minute More' 7". I used to own this 7" thirty years ago when it first came out. But when I managed to acquire a white vinyl copy, I sold my black one. The irony is that one of the reasons that I sold this is the exact reasons that I have decided to buy it again.

According to the Rev pressing info, there were 300 copies of this record on white vinyl and 5000 copies on black vinyl. But an unknown number of the black copies have a wrong, misprinted label on one side. The 'wrong' label states that the name of the song on the b-side is 'There's A Knife In My Back'. However, the song is actually titled 'Et Tu Bruté'. It turns out that the reason for this is that the song 'Et Tu Bruté' was originally called 'There's A Knife In My Back' and the band changed the title at some late stage. Clearly the change was made on the sleeve art but the label art somehow got missed until some copies had been pressed.

Back in 1995 when this came out and I first bought a copy, I noticed that the label was wrong as the title on the label is clearly different to what is printed on the back of the sleeve. Back then I thought that I had bought a 'faulty product' and so when I got a white copy I sold the black one and was glad to be rid of it. But all these years later I was reminded that this exists, and also realised that not all of the black copies are like this, so it suddenly seemed rare and appealing. So here I am going out of my way to track down a record that I couldn't wait to get rid of thirty years ago. What a ridiculous situation.

The photo above also shows that the final, correct version of the label also has the 'CIV' logo on it, which was not present on the misprint version. I didn't actually realise this difference existed until I picked up this misprint version last week. So this means that the misprint label is different in two ways.

Of course, the way that my brain works is that I now want one of the regular black copies with the regular labels so that I have two different black copies, even though I am not usually interested in the regular black copies. It really does never end.

Miss Machine

My last nine posts on here have been on clear vinyl Relapse Records releases that I picked up a few weeks ago. I bought a bunch in one go and I wanted to make sure I posted them all together rather than space them out and take months to get them up here. Today's post is the tenth and final post in the series, and I like to think that I saved the best until last...

At the end of the 90s I was really into what Hydrahead Records was doing. Generally their mission statement seemed to be to put out bands that nobody had ever heard of who, unbeknown to them at the time, would then go on to be huge a few years later. One such band that I bought records by (despite having no clue who they were nor what they sounded like) was The Dillinger Escape Plan. They had a split 7" with label mates Drowningman, and then an album ('Calculating Infinity'). Back in 1999 when it came out, I was into it. In 2002 they put out a record on a weird label with Mike Patton on vocals, which confused me so I just ignored it altogether. And then, a couple of years later in 2004 they got a new singer and released a second album, 'Miss Machine' which was on a different label (Relapse Records), and which featured some actual singing. Despite the second album being a bit different to the first, I still enjoyed it when it came out, but it was the last one I ever picked up. After some big festival appearances they seemed to get pretty big and, as often happens, I lost interest. Heck, they had a lot of new fans and probably didn't need me anyway.

Well, when I was recently picking up a bunch of clear vinyl Relapse releases, I filtered my spreadsheet to see if there were any other Relapse releases that I had forgotten about, and at this point realised that my copy of 'Miss Machine' was some standard colour vinyl from the first pressing. I am quite proud of the fact that pretty much every record in my collection that is on Relapse is on clear vinyl, so I started thinking about trying to upgrade this record to a clear vinyl copy. And after the thought entered my head and the chance presented itself, I couldn't help but pull the trigger.

The release page for this record on discogs suggests that there are 9 separate pressings of this LP, and as I type this in 2026, there are 19 different colour vinyl options listed. This first pressing clear vinyl (Not available to the public - Friends of band and label only') copy is the rarest of them all.

After deciding to buy this recently, I have listened to it quite a bit, and I feel that it definitely holds up really well. In fact, I think I am enjoying it now more than ever. Back when it came out I liked it, but also had this slight sense of disappointment. With all the passing years, that feeling is long gone and I'm able to enjoy it for what it is, not what a young version of me hoped it would be. I guess I can finally acknowledge why the band got so popular, and for the first time ever I'm now thinking about checking out some of their other releases.

Guilty Of Nothing

Four years ago I picked up an Integrity split 7" with a band called Nothing. I had never listened to Nothing previously, but I really enjoyed their song on that record, and at the end of the post I wrote: 'I get this vibe that they could easily become my next favourite band'. Well, four years later, and as at right now as I write this, I cannot get enough of this band.

When I was making a list of clear vinyl Relapse releases that I wanted to pick up, I realised that there were quite a few Nothing records. I was trying to figure out which to buy and which to leave for some other future point in time, but in the end I just went crazy and grabbed the lot. It just seemed impossible to decide to not buy any of them. So I ended up buying seven Nothing records in one fell swoop, which is a big move by my own standards (and probably everyone else's too).

I now present them here in the order in which they were released. All are on clear vinyl and each limited to 100 copies which the label states are 'Not available to the public - Friends of band and label only'.

The first LP from 2014, 'Guilty Of Everything'.

Next 'A.C.D'. This is a two song 12" released for Record Store Day in April 2016. This is a one sided 12" with a screen printed b-side.

The second LP, 'Tired Of Tomorrow', released in May 2016.

'Blue Line Baby', a three song 12" released in July 2018. This is another one sided 12" with a screen printed b-side.

The third LP, 'Dance On The Blacktop'. This one was released for Record Store Day in November 2018.

The fourth LP, 'The Great Dismal'. This one was released in October 2020.

'The Great Dismal B-Sides'. This is a three song 12" released a year after the LP, in October 2021.

Seven records by one band in one go feels like a big move, but three of them are three song 12"s, so it's not quite such an overwhelming amount of new music as I first thought. That said, there are a whole bunch of other reocrds that this band have done on other labels, including a new album that came out this year which I am going to have to try to pick up at some point I am sure. For nwo though, this is a good amount of Nothing to be getting on with.

Bad Stuff

Another record that I was given for free recently when I bought a bunch of Relapse Records releases was an album by a band called Bad Stuff. I saw the cover and immediately thought to myself 'what the fuck is this?' as it just looks like something that I would flip past in a record shop assuming it is firmly not for me.

The photo of the band on the back cover also strongly suggests that this is absolutely not for me. Upon first glance, I couldn't imagine what kind of sound this collection of people would make, but the signs were not positive.

I had immediately decided that I would sell this for whatever I could get, and hoped that the fact that I had a clear vinyl ('not available to the public - Friends of band and label only') copy might mean that some fool might be be willing to take it off my hands. So I decided to look online to see if it had any value. Sadly the clear vinyl version didn't have a listing on discogs so I couldn't tell what it may be worth, but it didn't look like there was much demand for the other colour versions, so I assumed it probably wasn't going to be worth too much. I then figured I would click the link to listen to a song just out of curiosity.

Well this is where the story changes, because I ended up listening to the whole thing and then being disappointed when it ended. I think the fact that I was listening to this late at night in low light really helped add to the atmostphere. I have no idea how to describe this, other than it sounds like the soundtrack to some weird David Lynch film or something. The bandcamp pages describes states that 'the LP mines the shadowy corners of goth rock, slowcore, rockabilly, and synth-driven pop' and which is probably more useful than my description.

So yeah, really interesting stuff and I'm so glad that I gave this a chance. I've also been exporing a band called True Widow that a couple of the members were in prior to this band. It's ballpark similar but still quite different being more shoegaze. I'm now contemplating buying one of their records. Funny how things turn out sometimes huh?

Fire On The Hill

When I purchased a bunch of Relapse Records recently, the seller was kind enough to throw in a couple of extra records that I didn't pay for. This is one of them.

The band is called New Idea Society, and this is their new album titled 'Fire On The Hill', released in May this year by Relapse Records. I had no plans to buy this at all, so it's kinda cool to be given one of the clear vinyl ('not available to the public - Friends of band and label only') copies. I mean, imagine if I had been given a different version and then liked it and had to go out of my way to find a clear copy. What a pain in the ass that would have been.

This band is actually a project / side band for Steve Brodsky (of Cave In fame). He plays with some guy called Mike Law. It looks like they mainly play together in a field in the middle of nowhere with plastic animals from a carousel for an audience.

I actually own their first album which came out in 2005 on some obscure German label. I'm pretty sure that I found it for sale in a record shop in London (Selectadisc, I think) for about £3, brand new and sealed. I also think I played it once and it was so awful that I decided to never play it again. To this day, I have never played it again.

Well anyway, I thought I would give this a go, and unlike their first album, I was very pleasantly surprised. Right off the bat this was an interesting and absorbing listen. It's very much a laid back indie rock record, but really varied and interesting. Well worth checking out if you're a fan of Steve Brodsky's voice generally. Heck, I'm even tempted to go back and check out that first album again after this. I mean, it can't be that bad, can it?