Retaliate

I have finally found a new favourite hardcore record after a few months of thinking that the Power Alone record couldn't be topped. Interestingly, the two have a couple of things in common. They are both on Indecision Records, they both came out in 2020, and I have only just got around to listening to both of them in 2022. My new favourite is the fourth LP from Southern Californian band Retaliate titled simply 'IV'.

This record is everything that a hardcore record should be. There are 13 songs that are hard as hell and which are ripped through in 19 minutes.

It's kinda cool that the whoe album fits on one side of a 12". I guess they could have put 10 minutes on each side and left a lot of dead wax in the middle of the record (like the WIshingwell pressing of 'Break Down The Walls'), but instead it was pressed on just one side to save people who do actually play their records the inconvenience of having to turn it over halfway through. There were 500 copies pressed in total, all on blue vinyl, but 100 copies came with a screen printed b-side.

I have a weird history with this band. I bought their first album back when it came out in 2006 and didn't really rate it much. Then I was sent a copy of the band's third LP by the singer in 2012 when I bought a record from him. I actually liked that record back then. But I had never gone back and checked their second LP. So after picking up this fourth LP and liking it instantly, I decided to pick up a copy of the second LP to complete the set. The second record is titled 'We Are One' came out in 2009, with all copies being on clear vinyl.

Similar to the fourth record, this one is over in a flash. There are 10 songs on here and the whole thing is over in 16 minutes.

I found an old interview with the band where the singer (Zack Nelson - previously guitarist in the band In Control) mentioned that every time they write a new record he gives the other members of the band a copy of the first In Cold Blood LP and says that it what he wants to sound like. I'd say that they've done a pretty good job if that's the reference point. In fact I'd say that they did better by quite some margin.

Quest For Certainty

Following on from yesterday's post about the Shelter test press is today's post about a Shelter test press. Having intended to buy a test press of 'Quest For Certainty' but ending up with a test press of 'Attaining The Supreme', the story had a kind of happy ending, as I also managed to source this:

This one is indeed a test press of 'Quest For Certainty', although sadly it's not an original test press on Equal Vision. This one is a reissue test press on Revelation... which is still a nice one to have.

So picking up the test press made me also want to pick up the colour vinyl copies that I had managed to miss. Some of the more recent Rev colour pressings are actually quite hard to get now, but these are pretty readily available. There were grey vinyl and blue vinyl copies put out in 2018, and then a clear yellow copy which just came out this year. I picked up all three.

Interestingly (or not) the yellow vinyl was pressed at a different pressing plant, so there is another test press for that one too, proving once and for all that I'm never able to complete any collection.

Attaining The Wrong Test

Here's one that has an entertaining story behind it for a change. Something like 4 years ago I won a Shelter test press on eBay. It was for my favourite Shelter record, 'Quest For Certainty', and I ended up paying quite a lot for it. For various reasons I only received it like 4 years after I won it. And I'm not really sure why, but for once I decided to play the record... at which point I realised that there was a small issue - I had not received the record that I had paid for. Rather than the second Shelter 12", I had received a test press of the third, 'Attaining The Supreme'. Instantly I felt disappointed.

It's not that I don't like this record. It's just that it's not anywhere near as good as the one that I thought I had bought. WHat made it worse is that I then found out that one of these had sold on discogs, for about a third of the price I had paid. So not only had I got the wrong record, I had overpaid for the one I did get.

The main problem was the amount of time that had passed between winning it on eBay and realising there was a problem. So I couldn't really raise it with the seller, right? Well, I decided to get in touch with the seller anyway. It was quite funny because I opened with 'I bought a record from you on eBay and it's not the record that it was suposed to be' and the response was 'I haven't sold anything on eBay for over 4 years'. Haha! I think the seller was worried that I was trying to be difficult and expect him to rectify the situation, but in reality I just wanted to know if he actually had the other record and had sent the wrong one by mistake, or whether he'd listed the only record he had but somehow just got mised up and typed the wrong name. It turns out that he actually thought that this was indeed a 'Quest For Certainty' test press, and he had no other Shelter tests at all. Given the amount of time that passed I didn't bother asking for a refund or anything, but I Was still a little bummed about missing out on the record I wanted, so I then asked if he happened to know anyone else who may have a 'Quest For Certainty' test press. 'Maybe'...

To be continued...

Youth Crew

Youth Of Today is one of those bands that I don't feel that I 'collect'. I never actively set out to try to pick up every version of every YOT record ever made. However, like a lot of bands, over time I have ended up picking up quite a lot of their records, mainly as a result of me being a Revelation Records collector. My spreadsheet tells me that I now own 61 YOT records, ranking them 4th in terms of the bands that I own most records by. No doubt they will eventually climb to the number 3 position as these things are likely to keep being pressed. Anyway, here are the latest YOT records I have added to my shelf, most of which came out last year and which I only recently received.

First up is the olive green pressing of the 'Can't Close My Eyes' 12". It doesn't look particularly green in this photo because it's a super dark shade. There were about 500 copies of this last year.

Next up are two different pressings of 'Break Down The Walls'. This solid blue pressing is from the back end of 2020.

And the most recent BDTW pressing is this clear yellow vinyl from this year. There were around 1600 of these, which feels like quite a lot. These should be around for quite a while I would imagine.

And finally, the yellow vinyl pressing of the 'Disengage' 7". There were around 500 of these, and it turns out that they were actually pressed about 20 miles away from my house.

The really annoying thing about this is that there was one Youth Of Today pressing that I completely missed - the solid red vinyl pressing of 'We're Not In This Alone' from 2015. Even though a lot of Rev represses are pretty much worthless, this one just doesn't seem to show up for sale too often. If anyone has one (or has a lead on one), please get in touch.

Glow On

Today's post is a record that was record of the year last year for many people. I was going to say that Turnstile's third LP 'Glow On' really did divide opinion, but actually I think that most people had already made up their mind on this band one or two records previous. But one thing that everyone did agree on was that this one really did 'push the boundaries' and prompt the question - is Turnstile still a hardcore band? I'm not even sure what my answer to this would be, and I'm not sure anyone would care anyway. But regardless, I'm with the majority here in that I love this record.

I'm not sure there is much point in posting this record now, months after it originally came out. I mean, everything that could be said about this one has been said a hundred times by everyone else. But it has been an important one for me in terms of learning lessons...

When this went up for order I was late and most of the limited colours of vinyl had sold out. But there were defintiely a couple of more common colours available to order. But as has happened many times in recent years, I was annoyed at having missed the rare versions, so I decided not to buy one of the more common ones as some kind of protest. Well, that was a big mistake, because this record ended up being like pretty much no other record I can think of, in that every single version of the record that showed up on the second hand market was selling for stupidly high amounts of money. I ended up in a position where even a black vinyl copy was going for £80-100. Some of the rarer versions were selling for $500-$1000 within a few weeks of the thing coming out. Total insanity... but a real indication as to how record collecting plays out in the 2020s.

Anyway, I picked up this copy from a shop over here for a reasonable price. I think this is a 2022 repress, but at this stage I'm just happy to get one at all. But damn, I am kicking myself for not buying one of those awesome looking pink copies (or even one of the white ones) when I had the chance.

Field Of Flames

Another recent Indecision Records release that I've been playing a lot lately is this 'Constructing A War Against You' 12" EP by Field Of Flames. I hadn't heard of the band and knew nothing about them, but after listening to one song I was handing my money over for a record immediately.

Indecision have put out a few limited releases, and this is one in the series. There were 200 copies pressed in total, all on colour vinyl. They were supposed to be blue vinyl, but the records range from blue to a greenish colour. I think mine is roughly the halfway point between the blue and green.

So Field Of Flames are a straight edge band from San Jose who are clearly heavily influenced by the 1990s. The final song on this 7 song EP is an Unbroken cover, and the band cite Slugfest and Undertow as influences. If this had been released back in 1995 then without a doubt it would have been put out by New Age Records. Anyway, If you like any of those bands or similar, then you'll probably enjoy this.

Down By Law

One of my absolute favourite bands of all time on Epitaph Records is Down By Law. I played the first three albums to death back in 1993/4, and as a result I can still to this day sing pretty much every word to each of those records. But the one thing that always disappointed me back then was the lack of colour vinyl on Epitaph. They literally pressed nothing on colour vinyl at all, just tens of thousands of black vinyl. So after all these years, I was stoked to be able to pick up this test press for their second full length, 'Blue'.

Epitaph tests are pretty rare generally, and pretty expensive if they do ever come up for sale, probably because most of their bands are hugely popular. This one wasn't actually too pricey, and I didn't have to pause for even a second before pulling the trigger. Getting the opportunity to own a test press of a Down By Law record was something that I hoped I would get for a long time now.

This test just comes in a plain white paper sleeve, but the next photo is just to show it next to the regular cover.

As much as I love the first 4 Down By Law records, I have pretty much zero desire to listen to anything after those. I tried the fifth one once and didn't like it. And then it turns out that that there have been several more over the years, including one in 2021. Crazy. Who knew?

I Hate San Francisco

Two years ago I stumbled on a great hardcore 7" by a band called Ex Youth. The band has (or had?) the drummer from Ceremony on vocals and released a six song 7" back in 2018 which absolutely rips. I picked up a white vinyl copy in 2020, but of course could not resist grabbing a couple of extra copies on different colours for pretty cheap prices when they fell in my path.

First up is one of the 'purple smoke' copies. As the photo shows, these were numbered out of 55 and come in a stamped dust sleeve.

I think these numbered copies were for mailorder only, and are called 'purple smoke' due to the faint whisps of purple contained within a clear vinyl record.

And I also grabbed a purple vinyl copy. There were 100 of these suckers.

I'm assuming that, with there now having been 4 years pass since this originally came out (and seven years since the band's demo was released), that the band is probably done. A bit of a shame, as this really is a great hardcofre 7" that is very reminiscent of the Bridge 9 kinda sound from about twenty years ago. But hey, this is the blessing and the curse of hardcore bands. Sometimes they come and go and leave only a 7" and you're forever left wondering what might have happened if they had stuck around a little longer.

Yak Songs

So I bought the new Angel Du$t LP 'Yak: A Collection Of Truck Songs' on the back of my decision to buy more new releases. And I also decided to ignore whatever suitable vinyl colours exist, and just grabbed this UK version on an awful bright green. I can't imagine many people who liked this band in 2014 are still payng attention at this point, and now I'm sat here looking at this picture and kinda wondering why I am, because this is pretty damn far away from where the band started out.

It's funny because I have liked each successive Angle Du$t LP less than the last one. The first one I absolutely loved back in 2014, the second one in 2016 let me down a little, the third was totally different and worked ok as a summer record in 2020... and here we are in 2022 with the fourth one. Musically it's much like the last one and nothing ike the first one, and I've actually been listening to this quite a bit because I have spent a fair amount of time just sitting in the garden over the last couple of weeks. Such are the benefits of not having a job. It seems like the right chice for sitting in the sun and nodding off if nothing else. But I am curious as to exactly who is into this band these days.

Sloth Rocket

Last year I posted about a record by a band called Blasting Concept, which I described as 'like hardcore 70s rock'. I also mentioned that I would probably get around to checking out their full length at some point. Well, that 'some point' is now.

The LP is titled 'Sloth Rocket' and was released by (believe it or not) Ebullition Records back in 2015. Turns out that someone in the band used to be in the band Manumission, hence the connection with Ebullition. I'm pretty sure that all copies are on this nice looking purple vinyl.

I was pretty stoked to find this one in Radiation Records, which is one of the best record stores I have ever been to. I was in the store for about 45 minutes and didn't get close to getting through half of the records in the store. But I just reached a point where I was actually getting bored of looking at records, and my fingers were starting to ache. But I was stoked to find this.

Interesting that I'm posting this almost a year after their first record that I posted, which i said last year was perfect for summer days. And here I was today listening to this whilst sitting in the sun, thinking 'damn it, this record rules'.

Unscrew My Head

With my recent decision to buy more new releases, I decided to pick up the Ekulu 'Unscrew My Head' LP. This came out last year and sold out before I knew it even existed. I generally have pretty low motivation to listen to every hardcore band that comes along these days, so I rely on hype. After a while I notice certain bands popping up more than average, and at that point I might check them out. So I'd seen the hype around this album and decided to just pick up this second press clear yellow vinyl copy, which is exclusive to RevHQ.

So I've been playing this one for a few weeks, and whilst i can kinda see what the hype is all about, this one has yet to really land with me. it's just not grabbing me like other records I have been listening to lately. None of the songs seem to stick in my head no matter how many times I play it. I mean, it's a solid hardcore record and probably sounds like a lot of New York bands from the late 80s, and I bet they are great live too. But it's a hard record and I'm still hoping that it's gonna click pretty soon.

We're All Dying Just In Time

Well this one was a turn up for the books. I used to love Death By Stereo back when their first couple of albums came out. I mean, I only really bought them because they were on Indecision, but at the time remember thinking that they were really interesting records. The musicianship was high and the singer had a very strong vocal and could actualy sing. I saw them play live once and they were great. But I guess like a lot of bands that keep going and going, I kinda lost interest at some point and lost track of what they had done. Turns out they had full lengths that came out in 2005, 2009 & 2012 that I had no idea existed. And they had another in 2020 that Indecision Records released called 'We're All Dying Just In Time' which I just picked up.

If I am honest here, I mainly picked this up because it was cheap, I was in the mood to pick up some new records. Oh yeah, and also because I thought that the green vinyl looked great. I figured that I probably wasn't interested in Death By Stereo in 2022, but based on the fact that I liked them twenty years ago then maybe there might still be something there that interested me.

Well, I have to say, I was really pleasantly surprised at how good this is. It made me think about why I lost track of this band in the first place. AFter some thought, I think that part of it is to do with the label(s) they were on in the 00s, and also the fact that two of their albums are CD only. I have always prioritised sinking my money into vinyl, so most CD only releases over the years passed me by. But anyway, this album is fantastic. It has some great variety, and I have to say that I love a vocal where you can clearly hear every word and not have to resort to reading the lyrics if you want to sing along. This one is also now high on my 'listen every day' play list and I am so glad that I gave it a chance. If you have never heard the band before, I'd actually recommend this one as a starting point. And if you have heard this band before but not heard this record, then I'd recommend giving it a chance like I did. You never know.

Lost Artifacts

I used to religiously buy everything that Indecision Records put out in the 90s and early 00s. They used to be one of my trusted labels and I would buy everything the label released. But then in the mid 00s the label slowed down and only really seemed to focus on putting out discographies of 90s bands. It felt like as if the label had pretty much wound up. But then a few years later the label started putting out new music again, but it felt like things had changed. I didn't know any of the bands, and some of them had questionable names and artwork. I switched off and figured that the label had lost it's way, like a lot of labels from the 90s that I used to love.

To mark the 100th release of the label was a compilation 10" titled 'Lost Artifacts'. It put together some previously unreleased songs from the glory days, and contains tracks from Count Me Out, Over My Dead Body, Throwdown, Death By Stereo and Faded Grey. I vaguely remember this coming out and nearly placing an order, but stopping myself mainly because it was a 10" and a compilation, both of which flagged it as 'unnecessary'. But visiting Indecision HQ recently I decided that I kinda wanted one in my collection. So of course I bought two.

A bit like the Sparkmarker LP that I posted a few days ago, I had the opportunity to grab a test press for a really great price so could not say no.

And because I was picking up a test press, I also wanted a regular copy. I chose the white vinyl (white is actually more 'off white', almost to the point of being grey), which is the most limited colour.

After chatting with Dave about this record, it very much represents the closing of one chapter and the start of another. Interestingly, this record came out in 2017 and the label's first release was the Strife 7" twenty five years earlier, in 1992. So a quarter of a century to put out 100 records... yet in the 4.5 years since this came out, the label is now up to catalogue number 154. Things have obviously sped up considerably.

After spending a little time checking out some of the releases that have followed this comp, I can safely say that Indecision has released some really great records the past few years, and I was pretty much ignorant to this. I've been working my way through some of the label's more recent releases over the past few weeks, and I'm kicking myself for not picking up on some of these things sooner. So there will be some more posts on Indecision releases in the near future...

To Whatever Fateful End

Here's another record I picked up at Rev after deciding that I should buy more new releases. The record is called 'To Whatever Fateful End' and it's by a band from North Carolina called Magnitude. This is a record that has been hiding in plain sight for three years or so now. I remember reading about it on Mike's blog on not 1, not 2 but 3 occassions and each time I thought the exact same thing - that this does indeed sound like something I may like, but it's on Triple B so I have no interest in buying it. Well, finally I crumbled and picked up this 4th pressing clear yellow copy.

As I mentioned a few posts back, as well as deciding to buy more new releases, I also decided to be less fussy about which version I pick up. So even though this is a 4th pressing, I am more than happy with this one, as it's a nice basic colour vinyl. None of this weird swirly splattery stuff, thank you very much.

After listening to this a bunch of times I can kinda see what the fuss is about. This is a blend of several 90s hardcore bands all rolled into one, without sounding like any one of them in particular. And you know that I'm a big fan of 90s hardcore. It's my era and I get nostalgic for it as it was a pivotal and exciting time of life. So it's great to find a record that makes me feel kinda nostalgic yet that is somehow not a 25 year old record that I know note for note.

Sweat

A couple of months ago Mike asked me if I had listened to the band Sweat. I had no idea what he was talking about but I deduced that he somehow expected me to know about the existence of a current band. Surely not. But to continue the ruse that I have a clue as to what is going within the musical sphere these days, I decided to investigate... which involved watching a video of one song on youtube. I think I dismissed the band within about five seconds of the vocals kicking in. I just found the voice off putting and I told Mike that Sweat was definitely not for me.

But when Mike later made a post about the band's LP that he bought he made comparisons to Annihilation Time and Thin Lizzy. so I decided I should give the band another shot and try to listen beyond the vocals. Well of course, when i focussed more on the guitar, it sounded much more appealing to me, and with my new decision to buy more new releases and be less fussy about vinyl colours, I decided to pick up a copy one day at RevHQ. I mean, I was there and the records were right in front of me. It woud be stupid to not buy one, right?

It turns out that there are 4 colours of vinyl for this thing, and I got a white one, which is not the most interesting looking version. But in terms of pressing, they are all the same, with there being 500 copies of each colour.

So the funny thing about how this story ends is that I'm now really into this record. It's getting played every day at the moment, and has been for the past couple of weeks. This is a really great hardcore record, and I'm now a big fan. And to think I nearly wrote this off after five seconds.

EDIT - Literally one day after I posted this I received a Sweat promo flexi in the mail. I figured I would just add it on to the end of this post rather than make another post about it, or add it to another post. It features one song ('Hit And Run') which is the opening song on the LP.

I've been sent a few of these promo flexis in recent years and most just go in the bin, but I figured this one worth keeping. Also, interesting that I don't think I have ever seen any of these promo flexi things on discogs. Makes me wonder there may be any of these things for records I actually care about that I don't even know exist.

Nothing But A Grey Nightmare

You know how I love weird variants of records, right? Well on my last trip to Rev I had a flick through the remaining copies of the Soul Search 'Nothing But A Nightmare' 7" to see if I could find any quirky copies. Rev released the 7" back in 2015 on two colours of vinyl - light grey and dark grey. At the time it seemed stupid that the two colours were both just shades of grey. But in terms of looking for variants, I figured that there might be a couple of copies that were nearer to either white or black, so took a few minutes to flick through the box to see what I could find. In the end I found a few interesting variants, although they only really show up when placed near to other copies.

The more limited colour was the light grey, of 550 copies. I found 4 copies that had a fair amount of variation to them, as shown in this photo:

The more common colour was dark grey. There were 1,100 copies on this colour, and I also managed to find 4 copies of the dark grey that show the variation in the press:

When I pulled these out the folks at Rev thought that I was nuts, which I don't deny. But I couldn't pass up the opportunity to flick through a box of records and see if I could find anything interesting. I was really hoping that I might find a pure white or pure black copy, but either they don't exist, or they got sold already.

The final thing to do is to lay the whole lot together for no reason other than it means I never need to lay these out again.

Pretend I'm Human

I'm not exactly sure why, but the last couple of years have seen most of the Orange 9mm catalog repressed or reissued on vinyl. The latest one to come out I hadn't ordered and had almost forgotten about until Nico posted pictures of his. SO I hopped on over to the Thirty Something Records store and placed an order. I had an overwhelming urge to maintain as complete a collection of Orange 9mm records as possible.

The first thing to say about this is that the packaging is great. It even comes in an orange poly sleeve, which is a nice touch.

There were 3 different colours of vinyl pressed, but I chose the orange... just because it feels that all Orange 9mm records should be on orange vinyl. I mean... come on.

It also comes with an insert, a poster and a sticker.

Oh yeah, and as a real gimmick, it comes with an Orange 9mm branded flyswatter. Or rather, a mini flyswatter. I've never owned a flyswatter in my life, but I'm pretty sure that if they were this small then nobody would ever manage to actually swat a fly.

This record was originally released back in 1999 on CD only and, until this year, I had never heard it before. I lost touch with (or gave up on) Orange 9mm at some point, probably because their releases were on a major label and CD only. Back at the end of the 90s there was no way to listen to stuff before you bought it, and I had limited funds available. Buying import CDs was an expensive business back then. ALthough if I think about it, I probably didn't even know that this had even come out at all, nor the band was still going. 1999 was a weird time, and Orange 9mm just wouldn't have been on my radar back then. But listening to this in 2022, I'm not really sure I missed anything. I think that this is probably their weakest record, and I actually struggled to get through it even once. If this were a new release I'd probably give it more time, but given it's a reissue of a 23 years old, I'm not sure there's too much point.

Products & Accessories

Another record I picked up on my recent California trip was a test press of the Sparkmarker 'Products And Accessories' double LP. This was released by Indecision Records in 2017. Prior to my trip, I had zero intention of buying this record. But there were a couple of spare tests at Indecision HQ, and the price was so good that I just couldn't say no.

The record itself is a vinyl pressing of the CD release of the same name, which was originally released by Final Notice Records back in 1994. The CD was a compilation of the band's first four 7"s, which were released in the early 90s. So this LP is a vinyl pressing of four 7"s. Anyway, given that I picked up a test press, I kinda also wanted one of the regular versions, as I don't like owning only a test press of a record. So I set about looking for a regular copy of the record. I wanted either a purple or red copy, as I found out that most of those were destroyed because the sound quality was poor. I didn't care about the sound quality. I wanted one because it was rare. Well, I got lucky and found one in the UK that cost me £7 including shipping... which seemed crazy as the shipping cost was probably £4.

I'm not sure how many copies were originally pressed on purple as Indecision no longer maintains a discography on it's website. But regardless, the colour itself is kinda interesting - purple with black smoke.

Back around 1994-5, Sparkmarker were a pretty big deal and it felt like everyone was into them. At the time I tracked down the 7"s one by one (which wasn't overly easy in the UK in the mid 90s) and I was disappointed that none of them came on colour vinyl. But even now their songs really hold up. They were doing a sound kinda similar to Quicksand, and even though they got a lot of positive press, it just felt like they never really got anywhere near as popular as other similar bands. Probably because they were from Canada I guess. But damn, these early songs are so good.