No Regrets

The final post in my month long series documenting all of the records that I walked out of Wanna Hear It Records with in December last year. And what an anti climax this is...

I am a fan of bad records generally. I actively enjoy Uniform Choice's 'Staring Into The Sun' and I genuinely really like Metallica's 'St. Anger'. I think the reasons for both are simply that I was not eagerly anticipating their respective release dates when they came out, so I was not disappointed or heartbroken when they changed their sound. I listened to both records years later and assessed them as records in their own right. So I have a skill for tolerating bad records, or so it seems.

The third Warzone LP, however, I could never hang with. I have bought it twice in the past and sold it twice, finding it unbearably bad. Yet somehow when I came across tihs copy in the used section in the record shop, I instantly pulled it out and decided to buy it.

I think my decision was partly fuelled by how much harder to find this seems to be these days. Twenty years ago you'd struggle to give this away. But, like with every record these days, this appears to pop up for sale much less frequently than it used to, and when it does appear most liekly it is listed by some fool charging $100. So as ever, a reasonable price made me think that this could represent a good opportunity to grab this one... again.

The other reason I wanted this is that it just felt like I had a hole in my Warzone collection. And whatever your opinion on this, the front cover looks kinda cool, right?

This is indeed a slightly odd Warzone record. Raybeez isn't referred to as Raybeez, instead he is called Ray James. Also, he's stood at the back in the group photo on the back cover. Oh yeah, and he has hair. No doubt this was a strange time for NY hardcore, so in a way it's cool that this exists as a document of a weird blip in the timeline.

Well of course, after buying this I had to give it another chance. I think previously I found it impossible to make it through the first song without turning it off. Yet somehow this time it didn't seem anywhere near as bad as I had expected or remembered. And in the last month I have listened to it several times, and here I am now thinking that this isn't anywhere near as bad as I previously thought. Ok, so it's not a great record, but in 2024 this no longer sounds terrible. I guess I must be getting old.

Final thing to say on this one is that I also managed to download the demo that was recorded before this LP was recorded, and the same songs sound WAY better on there. Well worth seeking out if you like the band and have never heard it.