Free Be World Be Free

I've had this record for a few weeks now, and really should have posted it sooner, but taking decent pictures has proven problematic. I guess I just need to lower my standards a little and get on with it.

At the start of this year Revelation released the debut LP by World Be Free. I've posted pictures of the first press colours (green vinyl and orange vinyl) previously. But the version that everybody was (and most still are) after was the tour press, which was sold back in February on some tour they did where they sold about ten copies per show. It came in a special sleeve, inspired by the Chung King LP:

It seems that somebody forgot that the Chung King LP came on white vinyl. Unfortunately, the orange vinyl doesn't look quite as nice. However, it really doesn't matter. This thing is all about the sleeve.

I was real lucky to have someone pick one of these up for me from one of the shows back in February. However, I then got hit by the worst luck in the world as the parcel it was sent to me in went MIA. I had a lot of good records in that missing box, but for some reason this World Be Free tour press was one of the three records I was most looking forward to receiving. I just loved the look of the front cover. So I was devastated when it was lost and vanished into the ether. I knew that I would really struggle to find another, especially at a good price.

So imagine how stoked I was then when someone GAVE me this copy here. I wasn't even expecting it. When I opened the mailer, it simultaneously put a smile on my face and brought a tear to my eye that someone could be so kind, thoughtful and selfless. If my parcel going missing back in April was the low point of my year, then this was probably the high point. THANK YOU!

Get A Glimpse

So there was a new Dinosaur Jr. LP come out a couple of months ago. 'Get A Glimpse Of What Yer Not' came out on 5 August to be precise. I was so excited that I bought it on the day it came out. It's very rare for me to go to an actual record store these days, but I caught a train to Kingston on my lunchbreak just to pick up a copy from Banquet Records. It's taken me two months to get around to putting it up on here due to problems with getting any acceptable photos. Getting photos of this one was tough for some reason. This is the best I could do.

At first I thought that this purple vinyl copy was limited in some way, but it seems if it is then it's probably limited to about 10,000 copies. It's not tough to get at all.

I appreciate that the photos above make the record look black, so here's an obligatory shot of it with the light behind.

This is probably the best Dinosaur Jr. record since before they got back together in 2007. I spent about a month listening to only this and the Descendents LP. If only I'd have been more prepared for its release and ordered the clear vinyl version from Newbusy Comics. That one is going to take a while to find for a good price I'm sure.

NWOBHC

When I first picked up the debut 7" by ARM'S RACE at the start of last year, I wasn't really into the vocals. In time, however, they grew on me, so I was excited to get the debut full length when it came out a few weeks ago. It was released by La Vida Es Un Mus Discos and arrived at my door about two days after I placed the order.

As you can see, this LP is cheekily titled 'New Wave Of British Hardcore', which is an interesting choice. I'm not sure if that phrase has now become a joke but I half expect so. Anyway, I grabbed one of the copies on limited white vinyl, which also has a screen printed inner sleeve. It looks pretty damn cool too.

At the time I thought this was the only pressing of this record, but soon after realised that there is also a US press by the mighty Painkiller Records. Some of those come on red vinyl, and I'd quite like one, but doubt that the label have any left.

At the time of me writing this, there are still some white copies available, so you should probably grab one while you still can.

A Lion Riding A Horse

So back on 6 June, a limited version of the World Be Free 'The Anti Circle' went on sale via the band's webstore. Or rather, it was supposed to go on sale. What actually happened was that a lot of people got excited about the record and the store crashed under the volume of traffic. I was sat at work at the end of the working day, and found myself clicking 'refresh' constantly for about an hour, not wanting to go home in case the store came back online and I missed out. So for an hour I found myself staring at the blue gator:

Well, the band then posted a message to say that they were working on getting a new site up to sell the records. So in the meantime I took the opportunity to escape the office and get myself home. And then a couple of hours after it should have gone on sale, it went on sale on a different site. I think the site crashing actually helped me, as it meant that a lot of people in the States were at work and not in a position to place an order. So when it went on sale the second time, I was able to grab one without problem.

The previous versions of this LP were pressed on orange and green vinyl. There was also a second pressing on clear vinyl (which I don't have yet), and based on the labels on the record itself, as well as the vinyl colours chosen, it felt like a homage to the War Zone 'LESC' 7". Well, this version confirms that's the case beyond a shadow of a doubt:

This limited cover is a cartoon parody of the infamous 'Lion Attacking A Horse' sleeve of the War Zone 7", which nobody has ever seen in full.

There were only 100 of these, numbered by hand. The hand numbering has been done in a style and colour that matches the rest of the text, which is good attention to detail, right?

The slight downside to this version was that it cost a lot because it came as part of a bundle, which included a couple of other bits of gubbins - a shirt and a slipmat. The shirt matches the LP cover, but the slipmat really doesn't. It looks dirty and used.

So this is the second limited cover for this LP that has been made. The first I never got. I had one coming to me in a big box with loads of other stuff that got lost. I was really looking forward to that record. Something about the cover just made me want it bad. It was one of the records in the box that I was looking forward to the most. So I made a split second decision to buy a second copy of this limited bundle so that I could try to trade one for the first limited cover version of the LP which got lost. Only, when the second copy arrived, it was slightly different to the first one, as the back cover was printed the wrong way up. Here's a short video which shows the misprint.

As of now I haven't traded one away and still have two. And I admit, I'm slightly tempted to keep them both as they are different, in some weird unintended way. But I'm curious - what would you do? Keep both or trade one?

Hypercaffium Spazzinate Part 1

So unless you've been living under a rock, you'll be aware that there's a new Descendents album which has just dropped. I think it would have been possible to miss either of the last two albums when they came out, but in the modern era I think it's pretty much impossible to have not noticed this one. It's called 'Hypercaffium Spazzinate' and is actually the first Descendents record to have been released since I got into them. The last LP, 'Cool To Be You', came out way back in 2004 when I was not into Descendents and when record collecting was in a different place. In 2004, for example, Epitaph didn't press anything on colour vinyl (save a couple of exceptions) and Fat Wreck saw fit to press only 197 copies of 'Cool To Be You' on color vinyl in total - the rest of the press was black vinyl. In 2016, however, the world works differently and within a week of the new album's released, Epitaph had pressed 8 different colors of vinyl (plus some on black too).

When the pre-order launched I got sent an email containing a link to a special pressing on glow in the dark vinyl. I was on the way out for a walk, and figured I'd order when I got home. Unfortunately, however, by the time I got home it had sold out. I saw this as a sign that there was going to be a lot of interest in this record, so made the decision to immediately order the other versions that were available. These were as follows:

1. 'Clear with black swirl' vinyl. This was the pre-order version from Kingsroad Merch in Europe.

2. Green / black swirl vinyl. This was exclusive to two stores in Europe (Green Hell and Flight 13). I got mine from Flight 13, which is why it has the extra orange sticker on the front.

It does look almost black in the photo, so here's the photo I put on instagram just to prove that it is in fact green:

3. Clear green vinyl. This was the pre-order color available from Kingsroad Merch in the States, but I don't have this one yet.

So that was that. There were four colours made, and I had missed one. I figured I'd get one eventually. But then, when the official release date arrived, there were suddenly 'new' colours being talked about. My approach to life is generally all or nothing, and seeing as I was already down the path to 'ALL' (se what I did there?) then I was left with no choice but to pull the trigger on the additional copies. These were as follows:

Silver / black swirl vinyl. This was the UK indie stores exclusive. No idea how many were made.

Red vinyl. I think this was available in both the States and Europe, but limited to 500 copies. No idea if this is rarer than other colours.

White vinyl. This was the US indie stores exclusive (big thanks to Mike for picking one of these up for me!).

So there you go. That's 5 copies I have, on possibly the most boring looking colours of vinyl I have ever seen. I did take a group shot but it looked so dull that I just deleted it. There's also a clear blue vinyl which is a Hot Topic exclusive, and there's also now a rumour of another blue, although I havent seen a picture of this and currently think it could be just confusion caused by people referring to the Hot Topic version as either 'coke bottle clear' or 'clear blue'. I don't know. But I have all copies covered now except that glow in the dark, which I could have ordered immediately if I hadn't have been confident that it would still be there an hour after I received the email. Ugh.

My World Be Free

A little over a month ago I had a parcel go missing. Inside was 98 records, a mix of old and new, rare and not so rare. The last month has been a roller coaster of emotions, but I'm now finally coming to terms with it. The parcel is officially lost and the records are gone. Fuck it.

Bizarrely, one of the records I was most excited about was the debut album by World Be Free, which came out at the start of the year. A friend had kindly picked me up a copy with a limited sleeve made for their tour in February, and I was looking forward to it. The band's logo is rad and I loved that the tour sleeve looked like a Chung King tribute. I also had the regular green and orange vinyl copies in the box too, which I was less fussed about. Well, that was until I realised that the first press was now completely sold out. Then replacing them became pretty urgent as I figured that I may still be able to find them in distros for relatively cheap.

The eagle-eyed among you may have noticed that the labels used on this LP matches the labels on the Warzone LESC 7". As do the vinyl colours. It's details like that which can only really be appreciated by true Rev nerds.

The green vinyl wasn't too easy to track down. There were 553 copies of this made, and being the limited colour, this version was only sold by Rev and a couple of distros in Europe that order from Rev in bulk. Come mid May there were no labels or distros selling this as new, so I had to go to Discogs and pay double what I paid the first time around.

The orange was slightly easier to find. With 1,354 copies made, I was able to find a distro that still had copies available for new price, which was good.

This best bit about this release, aside from the crazy characters on the back cover, is the photos on the insert. When your band is made up of old dudes who have been in bands for years, and who are probably looking a little past their best, then why would you use current photos when you can just dig out pictures from back in the day? Ha!

Back when this came out I was hugely underwhelmed. But I gave it a few tries and in time found myself enjoying it. It's quite catchy stuff... although not immediately catchy. Definitely worth persevering with if you have the patience.

There's now a second press of this available, and it sticks with the Warzone vinyl colour theme. But it's not about the ones you have. It's about the ones that got away, and it's gonna take me a fair amount of time (and money) to find a replacement for my lost tour press. Fucking parcel losing cunts.

Nothing Less

Just over a year ago I saw Mindset play in London. I chatted to Ev before they played and told him that I thought that their LP, 'Leave No Doubt', was probably the best straight edge record since The First Step's 'What We Know'. A year later and the band are almost done. They just put out a final 7" on Ev's label' React! Records, and last weekend they popped over to Europe to play three final European shows. I couldn't make it to the one in the UK, but a friend picked up a copy of their new 7" for me.

The 'Nothing Less' 7" went up for pre-order in mid January, and the red vinyl sold out in a few minutes. I didn't get one. So I'm very happy to get this maroon vinyl tour copy.

It's immediately obvious that they put a lot of effort into this record. The sleeve is a tri-fold affair, with a great layout which includes lots of live photos.

It's always sad when a good band calls it quits, but this 7" makes it bittersweet. The songs on here are really good. Truly next level stuff. So it's a shame that we won't get any more, but at the same time, it's good to see them going out on a high.

Journey Blind

To say I was excited to get the new Magic Circle LP would be a slight understatement. Their debut, self titled LP came out in 2013, and was one of my favourite releases of the year. But when the LP had dropped it had proven quite difficult to get hold of. Like a lot of records out of Boston these days, it got a lot of hype (rightly so) and the vinyl sold out super quick. So when it was announced towards the end of last year that a new album had been recorded, it got me excited. And I was determined to learn from my experience a couple of years ago, and not miss out on the vinyl. Despite this plan, however, when Deathwish Inc. put up a pre-order option in their store, I didn’t actually bother. I think it was because there was no limited edition or color vinyl option. It made me feel that the situation was not urgent. So I just waited. And then a couple of weeks ago, the band put something up on facebook announcing that there were 100 blue vinyl and 100 white vinyl copies available for pre-order. So I clicked the link and checked out as quick as I could.

The label imposed a limit of one colour vinyl copy per person, which was annoying as it meant that I couldn’t order both colours. So I ordered one myself and then had a friend order me the other one. Hopefully it won’t be too long until I receive the blue, but for now, I only have the white one.

I love the front cover of this. I don’t know why exactly. I mean, if I tried to describe it in words it would no doubt sound stupid. But in reality it looks great. Unlike, say, the back cover.

I've been playing this solidly the last couple of weeks. Goddamn, it's good. So good that there is nothing else I want to listen to at the moment. The only problem I face is whether this is technically a 2015 or 2016 release. According to the label, it came out in November 2015. However, the vinyl only started shipping in 2016. You might think that this doesn't matter, but here I am in January already thinking about my end of year list and whether this is already the best thing we're gonna get in 2016.