Coalesce Clears

So as I mentioned in my last post, I absolutely loved Coalesce in the late 90s. I have a pretty good collection of their records, but haven't picked up any for years as the band went into hibernation after the release of their 2009 comeback LP, 'Ox'.

Well, last year Relapse Records reissued all of their LPs, so when I was compiling a list of clear vinyl Relapse releases to pick up, I debated whether or not I wanted to buy represses of the records that I already had. In thinking about it, I decided that I did want two of them... but then I figured that if I was going to buy two then I might as well buy the other two for the full set.

The band's first LP, 'Give Them Rope', was originally released in 1997 by Edison Records. There were two different colours pressed originally, one of which was clear... although all of those copies have since turned brown, mine included. So I figured that this was a kind of a cool tribute to the original clear pressing.

'Functioning On Impatience' was originally released by Second Nature Records in 1998. I already own five original colours of this one, but clear isn't one of them.

I was impressed to see that this latest repressing is a faithful reproduction of the first pressing, with a vellum overlay. Even the label artwork is the same. This was not one of the two records that I really wanted, but I'm glad that I picked it up as it looks really nice.

The next record is one of the two that I really wanted. Back in 1999, Hydrahead Records released 'There Is Nothing New Under The Sun', which was a 12" of Led Zeppelin cover songs. This reissue is adds a '+' to the title, and the record contains the original release plus a bunch of extra cover songs that were oroginally released across different records, like the split 7" with Boysetsfire and the 'In These Black Days' Black Sabbath covers 7". This updated version has completely different artwork which I think looks really cool, and in my mind this is a 'new' record, so I definitely wanted to get one.

I do love the trippy artwork here, which I think is probably a perfect nod to Led Zeppelin.

And finally, I picked up a clear pressing of the band's proper album from 1999, ' 0:12 Revolution In Just Listening'. Interestingly, this was originally released by Relapse on CD with the vinyl being released by Hydrahead. Relapse pressed it onto vinyl in 2008 with different artwork, but now it's back on Relapse with the original artwork.

All of these records are limited to 100 copies on clear vinyl, and I think this is a pretty cool sub colection within my collection. And I am also now hoping that these records being repressed perhaps means that the band could be gearing up for a new release in the near future. Stranger things have happened.

Live At The BBC

My last post was about the 25th anniversary deluxe box set pressing of Cave In's 'Jupiter', for which I went out of my way to acquire a clear vinyl copy. As I mentioned, Relapse always (and have for years) make 100 copies of every release on clear vinyl which are not for sale to the public. They are only for friends of the band and label. And especially these days, when Relapse use my least favourite pressing plant for everything they put out, the clear is the only colour that I find acceptable to own. Well anyway, I ended up picking up a few Relapse releases on clear vinyl from the same person, and I will put these up in my next few posts.

About a year ago, Relapse put out a Cave In 12" of songs recorded live at the BBC's Maida Vale studio over here in London back in 2022. I used to try to collect every version of every Cave In record, but given the way record pressing works these days, I have given that up, and now only want one copy of any new Cave In record. So I knew that the only colour I would entertain buying for this record would be the clear vinyl version.

On reflection, I would say that this record is for diehard Cave In fans only. In all honesty it is largely pointless, as it features four songs from the last album ('Heavy Pendulum') and the band is so tight that the songs all sound pretty much identical to the album versions. OK, so the songs may have been played live, but I can't really tell the difference, which means I have basically just bought 4 songs that I already have again on a different plastic disc. Still, at least I have the raret version.

Relapse also released a similar Coalesce 12" last year, although the songs are much older, having been recorded when the band were over here on tour in 2009. Recorded at the same BBC Maida Vale studio, this 12" also features four songs that were all on either their 'Ox' LP or the accompanying 'Ox EP' (both released in 2009)... and just like Cave In, the band is so tight that these 'live' songs sound exactly the same as the album versions.

This record is somehow patterned, although I have no idea how it is done, but it looks really cool. It barely shows in the photo above, so I decided to try to take a photo to show it. It wasn't easy to capture, but here we go:

I can't even work out which side of the record this pattern is on. I think it is on the back, although when I flip the record over it isn't visible at all, which makes me wonder whether it is somehow on the front.

Anyway, there we have it - two nice looking but largely pointless records from two of the three mid/late 90s 'C' bands (the other being Converge of course). If nothing else, this reminded me of just how good Coalease were / are. I always thought that they were by far the best 'C' band, and this brought me right back to spinning them regularly as it had been a while. More to follow on that note in the next post...

Jupiter 25

Back in 2023 I bought a copy of the deluxe 25th anniversary pressing of Cave In's classic LP 'Until Your Heart Stops' which was put out as a 4 x LP box set. I went out of my way to get hold of the clear vinyl version, as it was the rarest and best looking version.

So here we are two years later, and pretty much the exact same thing has happened, but this time with their second LP 'Jupiter'. The only difference this time around is that the deluxe version of the record is a 3 x LP, rather than a 4 x LP. I was keen to get my hands on this thing as 'Jupiter' is probably in my top ten records of all time.

Relapse describes the record as a 'super limited, one-time press Deluxe 3xLP Boxset housed in a custom designed hardcover 3xLP book sheathed in a rigid board slipcase'. Does that make sense? Not sure. But the outer box / slip case is absolutely beautiful.

From the outer box, the inner booklet sleeve thing slides out sideways:

The booklet style sleeve then opens up, and the records slide out from the top of the 'pages'.

And turning the next page reveals another couple of pages and another record. As previously mentioned, there are three records inside this package.

And as well as a booklet in a box, there is also a two sided photo collage insert. I took a photo of one side.

So the next question is... how did they manage to take a single LP and spread it across three records? Well, by cramming a bunch of extra shit on there is the answer. It includes some demo versions of the songs and also a live set recorded a local Boston radio station back in October of the year 2000. Is this stuff necessary? Well, probably not. But it helps spread it out across three records which kinda justifies the existence of the box.

I was keen to get this on clear vinyl. Relapse Records always makes 100 copies of every release on clear vinyl, and these are in theory not available to the public, but available to friends of band and label only. Technically I'm not in either of those groups, but I found a way to get one as I usually do with Relapse releases that I have an interest in. And given that all other versions are on various splatter colours, this is literally the only version that looks vaguely acceptable.

What's also mindblowing to me is the numbers of this thing that were pressed. In total there are 1,211 copies of the deluxe 3xLP spread across 4 different colours of vinyl. But there are also a further 7,633 copies of the less exciting 2xLP version, spread across 5 different colours of vinyl. That's close to 9,000 copies on vinyl in total, and 18,899 individual discs pressed... which seems crazy to me, but is I guess a measure of how popular records are in 2025.

Mob Handed

It's been almost a month since I last updated this blog. I've had a few things going on, but finally life is settling back down again so I'm keen to crack on with writihng about some new records that I have been listening to.

Just before xmas I ordered a 7" by a new UK band called Mob Handed. I was keen to pick this one up as it features Tony Maddocks on vocals, who used to sing for a band called Above All in the 90s. They came from Southend on Sea, which was a town that I lived in for a bit during the 90s and where my Dad & brother still live. The guys from Above All were kinda influential to my future music journey, so I was interested to hear this new band.

This self titled 7" was pressed in a really small run, with only 102 copies made in total. The first 30 copies come in this limited cover. It's a parody of the first Bad Brains album, but instead of the US Capitol building, the lightning is striking The Kursaal, a local Southend landmark. I got number 7/102.

When this went on sale the label also put up one test press for sale, which I grabbed. It was sent to me in a plain white paper sleeve, but then a couple of weeks ago I was in Southend and invited myself around to the guy's house who released it, at which point I asked for a spare sleeve to put it in. 'Good idea' he said, and gave me one of the regular sleeves for test press number 2 of 5.

The front cover features an artistic photo of Southend Pier, which in case you didn't know, is the longest 'pleasure pier' in the world.

Overall this is a really solid 7". There are six songs, four of which are around 2 minutes long and the other two are about one minute. Short hard blasts like hardcore should be.

If this sounds in any way interesting to you, then you can still buy a copy of this on the Then And Now bandcamp page, HERE.

Tied Down... Again

So here's a record that I saw in America recently and didn't buy - a purple vinyl 2020 repress of Negative Approach's 'Tied Down' LP.

'But why would you say that you didn't buy it when clearly you did?' I hear you ask. Well, this was one of those occasions where I saw this for sale in a shop and decided not to buy it, and then realised a couple of days later that I was still thinking about it and therefore clearly did want it after all.

So after I got home and I still had it on my mind I checked on discogs and found a UK seller with a copy available, so I did what I clearly wanted to do a few days earlier and bought it.

The funny thing here is that I bought the green vinyl pressing of this back in 2020, and I just reread the post I made about it, and it is pretty much exactly the same story. Here is a quote from that post:

I was in Boston at the end of last year, and in Newbury Comics I had found a small stack of records I wanted to buy... but then, one by one, I put most of them back into the racks as I didn't really want to spend the money that day. One of them was a green vinyl repress of the 'Tied Down' LP by Negative Approach, and I put it back on the basis that it was a repress that I could probably live without... but then, as time has gone on, I have continually seen pictures of it popping up and found myself wishing that I had bought it after all.

So there we go... four and a half years later and I have seemingly learnt absolutely nothing.

Uncharted

So in early December last year I spent a few days in Florida, and as a late decision one day we decided to drive north and spend a couple of days in Gainesville. It was a place I knew next to nothing about, other than the University of Florida is based there, and it's the hometown of the band Less Than Jake. So of course, the two hour drive up to Gainesville was spent listening to Less Than Jake songs whilst we looked forward to exploring 'Gainesville Rock City'.

So here's the thing - back at the end of the 90s I was quite into Less Than Jake. It started when the label that released their first LP sent me a copy for free, and I decided to check it out and found it incredibly catchy... even though it was definitely not the usual thing that I would have listened to. So I then got into them, and I still have a bunch of their records, although I probably haven't added to my collection since the year 2000 when 'Borders & Boundaries' came out. But listening to those songs again in the car made me curious as to what the band were up to now, which ended up with me discovering that they had just put out a new record. So of course, given that they were once again the best band in the world to me on that particular day, I decided to order one.

This record is titled 'Uncharted' and it seems that it is neither one thing nor another. It has 7 songs, so feels like it's too short to be an LP, but a little too long to be a 12" EP. But hey, maybe these are just old fashioned concepts in 2025?

Also, given we are in 2025, we're playing by modern record pressing rules, meaning that there are (I think) 7 different vinyl colours of this record. The copy I ordered is known as 'electric blue glitter' and seems to be one of the the most limited colours out of 250 copies (there are two others, also out of 250 each, and then a bunch out of 500 or more). I mainly chose it as it sounded like the least offensive colour from the list.

As I mentioned, I haven't listened to anything new from this band since 2000, but these songs are good fun, and I've enjoyed this the past couple of weeks. Heck, I might even start trying to work my way backwards through the other records I have missed out on the past twenty years or so. We shall see.

Green Rage

A year and a half ago I was lucky enough to pick up a test press of the Rage Against The Machine 'People Of The Sun' 10". Even though it was nowhere near my list of top Revelation releases, picking up the test press made me more keen to pick up the colours that I had missed out on. But even though most Rev represses are pressed in quantities of 500 or more, a lot of them just don't seem to pop up for sale very often, and this release is one of them. It's kinda weird.

Well, as soon as I got back from holiday I got lucky, as one of the copies I was missing popped up for sale on eBay UK for a fair price. It was a 'buy it now' too, which made it very easy.

This green vinyl press is from 2016. There were 611 copies.

This means that I am now missing only two colours - the recent grey vinyl pressing (which in theory I can get easily) and the 2014 red vinyl pressing, which annoyed me so much back when it came out that I refused to acknowledge it existed. No doubt the red one is going to haunt me for a long time.

Wanna Hear Some 7"s

Following on from my last post, I was in Wanna Hear It Records and having just scooped a great bunch of cheap 12"s, I then made my way to the 7" section. I'd had a lot of luck in their 7" section on two previous visits, and even though I was keen to have a look, it was quite overwhelming as there are a lot of records to get through.

Well, spoiler alert... I did manage to find a bunch of 7"s. And in keepin with the theme of this US trip, I mainly ended up with a handful of cheap finds. I guess when I'm in a record store in the States I can never get over the novelty of being able to buy 7"s for $4 or so. So let's get on with it...

Down To Nothing / 50 Lions split 7" on grey. This is from the first pressing and is limited to 300 copies. I picked up two copies of this record last year in the same store. Maybe if I visit rhere enough times I will eventually end up with a complete collection?

Next up, I grabbed two different Fired Up 'Doomed To Repeat' 7" test pressings. The rejected test press comes in a cool sleeve, whereas the accepted test comes in white paper sleeve only. It's also really interesting to see that they each have different labels. The rejected test is dated 13 November 2008, and the accepted test is dated 6th January 2009, so at some point in between United Record Pressing changed the design of their test press labels.

The Fired Up test pressings were the most expensive records I bought, at $15 each, which I still thought was a very good price for two tests.

Next up this hot pink vinyl copy of the Kid Kilowatt 7". This band featured Steve Brodsky and Adam McGrath from Cave In. They put out one 7" and one LP back in 2001-03. I love both and this could be a fun 7" to collect as thre are about five different colours out there.

Next, a copy of the Mission Impossible 'Killing Me Softly' 7" on 'lavendar' vinyl. This was released by Workshed Records and, like a couple of the other releases on the same label, the colour ranges widely between dark purple and light pink. I already had two of these, but instantly knew that this one was different to those.

This is a pic of my three copies, with the new one in the middle.

Next up is a clear vinyl copy of the Paint It Black 'Amnesia' 7". This is now my fourth copy of this record. I have nothing more to say on this one.

Sinking Ships 'Meridian' 7" on green. This is a second press copy and is the most common colour there is, although somehow I didn't have one before. There are so many copies of this record and I don't have any of the rare ones. Ah well, maybe in another 20 years or so...

Unity 7" on clear vinyl. This is a later pressing that I ignored for years, but last year made a decision to try to pick up all of the colours, figuring that they would be cheap. I think that I now only have one more that I need.

And finally, talk about an anti climax, but this is another copy of the 'Anger Management' compilation on blue vinyl. This was released by Martyr Records in 2003, and has some cool bands from that era such as My Luck, Holding On, Close Call and (my favourite) Diehard Youth.

The funny thing about these 7"s is that I have literally only just realised that none of these 7"s are new records to me. I already own at least one copy of each of these things. I'm not really sure what the conclusion is other than I am clearly happy to just buy the same records over and over. At the age I'm at, I probably should have grown out of this by now.

Anyway, that's that - the end of the US record store December pickups. Normal service can now resume on here.

Wanna Hear Some 12"s

After the trip to Big Dig Recoreds in the morning, we grabbed lunch in Cambridge and then had a look at transport options to take us to the next store, Wanna Hear It Records. I had been to this shop on the last two trips and it always gave up some gems, so I was keen to get back there for a thirsd visit if we could get there. Its a few miles out so not easy without a car, but from our position in Cambridge we worked out that we could get a bus. I am not a fan of buses generally and have no idea how they work (i.e. where to get on, how to pay, where to get off) but google maps made this look easy. So we found the bus stop, waited about five minutes and then boarded a bus to Watertown. Turned out that google maps tells you exactly where to get on and off, so we made it there with no issue, and best of all the cost of the bus was covered by teh travel card that we had bought for the trains. Much better than the other option of two Uber trips for a total of $50 or so.

We got to Wanna Hear It and I ended up chatting with the owner, Joey, for a while about all kinds of stuff, including Cyber Trucks, Trump and Japanese record stores. And then I figured I had better get on with digging through his shop, as time was marching on...

Wanna Hear It really is a great store. It ticks all the boxes, carrying a huge stock of new releases and used records. There are rare items on the wall and also boxes of super cheap records on the floor under the racks. Last year I found a couple of cheap items in the sale section, so I was keen to dive straight back in. It did not disappoint, as I found 4 LPs in the $3.99 bin...

First up I found this screen printed cover version of the Bitter Branches 'This Is Meant To Hurt You' 12". I bought a yellow vinyl copy when this came out and later managed to get a test press but for $3.99 I was gladly going to add another copy to my collection.

This one is numbered 42/300 on the back cover:

Next up, I found the second album by Break Away, 'Cross My Heart', which was put out by React! Records in 2017. I had fully given up on React! at this point, and I only got around to listening to this band's first LP from 2015 in 2018, which I also found in a bargain bin.

Anyway, as soon as I played this I was floored. The intro is so hard. A really great hardcore record, and a great investment of $3.19.

My next find was the Chain Reaction 'Figurehead' 12" EP on purple vinyl. This band is a euro all star band of sorts, and they had completely passed me by to this point. This came out in 2020, and was pressed by Control Records in Euroland and Atomic Action! in the States.

This is also a great, powerful hardcore record. You can tell that these dudes have been around a bit and been in other bands as the quality of the songs is very high. I'm really glad that this was in the bargain bin else I probably would never have heard it.

And the final cheap 12" I rescued from the box is this grey vinyl copy of 'Power Of Bliss' by a band called Bliss. I vaguely remember seeing a few people post about this back in 2019/20 when it dropped. I remember thinking that the cover looked kinda cool. SO I figured I'd risk three bucks on it.

I can't quite make my mind up on this one. It swings from melodic to harder songs, but the vocal is the bit I'm not sure about.

So that was the last of the bargain bin records, but I also found a couple of other LPs I was interested in in the full price used section. The first one I grabbed was this copy of the third and final Voorhees LP, 'Crystal Lakes Legacy' which came out in 2001. I'm not entirely sure why I never bothered with this LP until now, but I was pretty excited to find it for $10.

I love the cover of this record. Seems crazy to think that this came out on a US label and there was no UK or European pressing. Thinking back, by 2001 things were in a weird place in hardcore, and even though Voorhees were still going, they probably seemed like an old band at that point. Plus probably a few older people had moved on to other things. Heck, I was working in a bar and (finally) getting into The Smiths at that time, so everything was getting weird. Anyway, even though I doubt anyone would rank this as their favourite Voorhees record, its actually a really good LP, and I'm kinda annoyed at myself for not getting around to it years back.

The final 12" I found was this blue vinyl copy of the Waste Management 'Tried And True' LP. This is another modern Boston hardcore record, released in 2018 by Painkiller Records, with the blue vinyl being the limited version.

This sounds very similar to a lot of other Boston hardcore records from the last 10-15 years and (unsurprisingly) has DFJ on drums and other dudes who were in Mind Eraser, Boston Strangler, Prisoner Abuse, Stop And Think, etc.

There was a rare No Tolerance record on the wall that I kinda wanted, but I just didn't really want to spend the money. I was firmly locked into my 'cheap records only' mission it seemed on this trip, and was struggling to wrap my head around how it was possible to buy so many awesome records for so little money, to the point where paying big money for super rare items seemed like a completely different game. So instead I decided to invest some time trying to unearth some cheap 7"s...

(To be continued)

The Big Dig

Continuing my posts from my visits to record stores in the States in December last year, and even though I went to a couple of other stores in Florida, I didn't end up buying anything. But as is the case most years, we had a day in Boston at the end of the trip, and so I took the opportunity to visit a couple of record stores.

The day we had was a nice, bright day, but was absolutely freezing. In the morning we caught the train to Cambridge to check out Big Dig Records.

One of the owners of the shop is Chris Minicucci, owner of Painkiller Records, so I was kinda hoping that there may be a few 'sold out' Painkiller releases in the racks. The store carried a lot of different genres of music, but had a healthy hardcore/punk section and it was good fun flipping through, wondering what I was going to find.

The first thing I found was the Boston Strangler demo 12". I was never overly fussed about this when it came out. It came out after the two LPs and at the time felt like a bit of a cash grab. The fact that the second LP was a bit of a let down, plus lack of a colour vinyl option meant that I never bothered with this. But here I was in Boston with this in my hand for $10. I basically had to buy it.

The next thing I found was this gold vinyl copy of the Think I Care 'Singles Collection' 12". I remember when this came out and I was surprised that it sold out quite quickly given that I had always assumed nobody ever really liked this band that much. But its a nice looking record, and the price was pretty good too at $15.

After this I then moved onto the 7" section. I immediately found another Boston hardcore classic I was missing. This is the first of three 7"s by Close Call, a Boston band who were around in the late 90s / early 00s, and which had Chris Minicucci in as well as Nick who was also drumming in Bane. This actually sounds very similar to Bane too if that interests you. I have their other two 7"s, but never got around to picking this one up for some reason.

The dude on the counter was keen to point out to me that one of the owners of the store was in this band and pictured on the back of the record. I was like 'oh, ok', but of course, I already knew. I mean, come on... give me some credit. As if I'd be buying this in 2024 with no clue what it was, haha.

Next up I found two super cheap R'N'R records. I picked up a couple of R'N'R 7"s last year which were pretty cheap, and I just love buying multiple copies of records that nobody else really gives a fuck about anymore, so these two copies of the split with Fit For Abuse for $4 each were right up my street.

I bought the red vinyl copy of this back when it came out and then a few years later ended up with a red vinyl test press, so it was cool to pick up these and complete the set.

So i took the above records to the counter and the dude was like 'oh, you're into Boston hardcore. I have another box of 7"s that you may be interested in'. Sadly, this box wasn't packed full of original Last Rights 7"s or In My Eyes demo 7"s with Lil Wayne covers, but instead it was records that were $8 or more. I found three items in there that I felt obliged to take away...

The first find was this white vinyl copy of the Dump Truck demo. I've had this in digital format for years, and even though this is a later pressing, I figured I should probably have one in my collection. Such a great demo, especially the first song 'Suckerpunched'. One of the absolute best things to come out in that 2003/4 Lockin' Out period.

Next up I grabbed this 7" by The Flex. This came out in about 2015 and I bought one from the label at the time, but it ended up going missing in the mail and I never got it. So it was good to finally pick one up all these years later for a very fair price.

And finally, I picked up yet another copy of the Build & Destroy demo 7". This is in my opinion one of the best hardcore records of the 2010s, and its such a shame that they only ever released two 7"s worth of material. There is a lot of variation in the colour of these 7"s, and I knew that this copy was different to the two that I already had, so I couldn't resist it.

Here's a shot with all three of my copies of this record. The new one is the one in the middle. Technically the only colour of this 7" that was pressed was purple, but as you can see, 'purple' comes in many shades.

Overall a nice little haul, and not overly expensive either. I don't think anything here is particularly mindblowing, but it felt kinda cool to pick up some of these records in Boston on a freezing winter's day, and once again I managed to find things that were already on my discogs want list at much lower prices than I could have bought them through the mail. Definitely a fun time.