The Reaper

Back in February this year I picked up the debut release by UK hardcore band Unified Action. Coming out of the northeast of England in 2023, but sounding like they came out of Boston in 1983, this is a good old fashioned hardcore record, and definitely one of the best releases of the year so far. Well, the band played a release show a couple of months ago and made a limited cover version of the record for the show, with a nice pic of some poor dude getting impaled through the guts. I decided I wanted one, so did what any record nerd would do - I jumped in my car and drive 308 miles to Newcastle to attend the show.*

As much as I like the artwork on display here, this does slightly annoy me, because whoever was in charge of making it got the measurements wrong. The limited cover is a little too small, so the record sticks out the sides and top.

I was also lucky enough to get number 1/15. That's what you get for waiting outside the venue for two hours before the doors open, then sprinting to the merch table as soon as the doors opened.*

* Sadly, none of the above is true. I mean, the bit about the sleeve being too small definitely is, but the bit about me driving to the show is definitely not. I can barely muster the motivation to travel more than 3 miles these days, so I was lucky enough to be able to buy one of the leftover copies of this one. Muchas gracias, Lins87. Hopefully I'll actually get to see this band in real life at some point.