Green Blast

A couple of days ago social media lit up with tributes to 7 Seconds. Turns out that they have decided to call it a day. In a slightly sad turn of events, plans for a final show or a 40th anniversary show that they were thinking about had to be abandoned. Sounds like they literally cannot play anymore due to the health of a couple of members. A sad day for sure. But a good prompt for me to post this green vinyl 'Blasts From The Past EP' that I picked up a while ago:

I've never really understood the pressing info on this record. I mean, I know there are three colour vinyl versions out there (green, blue and clear). I never really knew which came first or which was rarest, but I'm not actually that bothered really. In my head I think that blue is the first press, but I'm not sure. What I do know, however, is that blue is the one that I am missing.

The Beast

A new Arms Race 7" - 'The Beast EP' - dropped a few weeks ago. I saw it announced somewhere or other and read that there were only 100 copies on white vinyl, so figured I would jump on it right away.

As seems to be increasingly the case with UK hardcore records these days, there was a UK pressing and also a US pressing. I opted for the UK pressing for price and speed reasons, so this one came from La Vida Es Un Mus Discos. It has a label stamp on the inner sleeve which is kinda cool... but which also makes the inner sleeve irreplacable if it ever gets damaged.

The US pressing is on Painkiller Records and also comes on white vinyl. Probably I'd have ordered a US copy too if it had come on a different colour. But two white copies on two different labels feels unneccessary, which is good as I have a lot of other stuff to pay for at the moment.

This one feels like a bit of a step up from their last release. Not sure why I'm saying that, but it just sounds bigger and harder to me. Not that I know what I'm talking about of course.

By The Grace Of Black God

Back in June last year I picked up a test press of the second Black God 7", imaginatively titled 'II'. At the end of the post I said 'I see this as the start of another collection. The objective is to get test presses of all 4 of the Black God 7"s'. Well, nine months later and here's my second one, which is actually the first one:

Granted, this isn't much to look at. But neither was the other one. So it's nice to have consistency if nothing else.

I'm still hoping I can eventually get tests of the third and fourth 7"s too, and ideally for a similar price.

Well, on a related note, I also finally managed to get a blue vinyl copy of the By The Grace Of God '3 Steps To A Better Democracy' 7". This was originally issued as a CD EP with very DIY packaging. I actually purchased the CD when it came out back in 1999. Then twelve years later it was repressed as a 7", with 100 copies on blue vinyl.

I didn't even know this existed until a couple of years ago when I saw this band play in London. As is often the case, I was stoked after the show and did the inevitable 'go to discogs and see if anyone is selling any records' manoeuvre, at which point I spotted that this record existed. At the time I spotted a blue vinyl copy and bought it, only to receive a black vinyl copy in the post.

The crazy thing was that the seller was the label, and the item for sale was described as 'blue vinyl'. But when I got in touch to point out he'd accidentally sent me a black copy, dude's response was something like 'I don't have any blue copies left - those sold out years ago'. He didn't seem to realise that he had listed the item as being blue, but despite this being clearly his fuck up, he was expecting me to pay to return the incorrect item to him. Fool. Anyway, so was born my policy of 'never buy from discogs unless you get photos first'.

Never Wash Away

Last year my friend Kyle sent me a test press of 7" of his old band, The Damage Done. I'd never heard them before, despite the band having been active many years ago when I was much more up on what was going on in the world of hardcore. But after giving it a whole bunch of listens, and enjoying it, I knew I would have to try to pick up more records at some point. Well, a couple of weeks ago I was trying to work out a trade with some dude, and I noticed he had a couple of The Damage Done 7"s, so I asked for them and he agreed to send them to me.

The 7"s are two variations of the same release - the 'Never Wash Away' 7", which came out on Western Front Records. First up is the record release version:

This one came out in 2002. I said it before, but at this point I was pretty out of touch with hardcore due to throwing myself into studying in order to try to get a job that paid well, so that I could afford to buy multiple copies of every record ever made. Haha!

I also got a copy in the regular sleeve on yellow vinyl. No idea what the pressing info is on this, so don't know if yellow is the rarer or more common colour.

This one also comes on blue vinyl, so it'd be nice to pick up one of those at some point. But after checking Kyle's blog, there are a lot of variants that I could go after. This could be a long game...

Ten Spot

When people ask who your favourite Dischord band is, I would guess that most people would opt for Fugazi or Minor Threat. Next in line would, I am sure, be the likes of Dag Nasty, Embrace and Rites of Spring. Maybe also Scream, Ignition, Jawbox or even Nation Of Ulysees. For me though, the answer is undoubtedly Shudder To Think. So I was pretty fucking stoked to pick up another test press, this time of their second LP, 'Ten Spot'.

This was from an era when test pressings were issued as promotional items. I don't know this for a fact, but I think there were actually quite a few test pressings of Dischord releases as they doubled up as promos for radio stations or music journalist types.

this one includes this (minimal) press sheet, which contains pretty much no information whatsoever other than the song titles.

This LP came out in 1990. If you live in the UK, what you would notice immediately is the old phone code for London on the label and press sheet. The code '01' for London was discontinued in May 1990, so that little piece fo information helps to date this record.

Interestingly, this album has just this year been reissued on vinyl for the first time in a long time, with revised cover art and remastered, so I'll probably have to pick that up at some point.

Architects Of The End

I first heard of Longest War back in October 2014 when I picked up their debut 7". Featuring ex-members of Despair, Chokehold and Union, this was a band that I quickly got interested in... and then forgot about. But when it was announced that their debut LP was to be released last year, I was keen to re-visit them.

'Architects Of The End' came out in the latter half of last year on Irish Voodoo Records. There were only 113 copies on a bright orange vinyl, which has proven to be one of THE most difficult records for me to get an acceptable photo of ever. I think I must have photographed this record on at least ten different days, and each time the photos looked ok on the phone screen but then awfully washed out on the computer screen. Today's attempt just about scrapes a pass.

For various reasons, I only got around to listening to this properly in the last couple of weeks. It's some good old fashioned metallic hardcore, with riffs reminiscent of Slayer in places. In short, it's pretty damn good if you're into that kind of thing.

Oh yeah, and I also picked up a test press. Irish Voodoo are pretty much the only label who sell their test pressings for a really reasonable price as soon as their records are put up for pre-order, so I couldn't resist.

Number 16 of 25 copies.

Militant Misanthrope

I never heard Broken Cross before, but I decided to buy the new LP after seeing a post on instagram. There were 50 pre-order copies, and anyone who bought one would be entered into a draw to win one of two test pressings that were being given away. I listened to a couple of songs online and liked what I heard, and with the added 1 in 25 chance to win a test press, I figured it was worth a punt.

There were 50 pre-order copies, all on this really nice purple vinyl and numbered on the inner sleeve. I managed to get the last one. All pre-order copies also came with a pin of the label art, which is pretty cool and which I placed on the dust sleeve for this photo:

Broken Cross plays some pretty heavy music. Descriptions generally seem to refer to it as thrash metal, but to me it sounds more like Japanese hardcore punk. Remember the band Hellchild who once had a split 12" with Converge? Well this reminds me of them a lot.

I should also mention that Broken Cross is a one man operation. The whole record is the work of one man (Niklas Holm), a fellow / rival Integrity collector who resides in Sweden. Dude has one of the two best Integrity collections in the world. It's probably not surprising then that the artwork for this LP was done by Dwid from Integrity.

It's probably also worth mentioning that this is probably the greatest shade of purple vinyl that I have ever seen. I think all copies of this release come on purple, so even though the pre-order copies are sold out you can still get yourself a copy that looks as nice as the one in the picture here. If you are interested, check out the Apocalyptic Visions store.

TEN YEARS STRONG

Precisely ten years ago, I was sat around indoors wondering what to do with my evening, when I had the idea of starting a blog about records. The rest is history.

I'm actually surprised that I have managed to keep this thing going for this long. But given that I have, I figured I should mark the occasion in some way. So here for you amusement is a re-post, in picture form, of my first ever post from way back on 28 February 2008.

X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X

As I have said before, the passing of time never ceases to amaze me. It's kinda funny that I mentioned in my first post that 'It's hard to believe it's been over ten years since I first heard this band'... and now here we are in 2018 and it's over TWENTY years of Rain On The Parade, and ten years of this blog.

Crazy.

A Bunch Of 7"s

I got a list from someone recently of stuff they were selling. There were literally hundreds of records on the list, and a few very rare or expensive items. But I mainly went after stuff that I was missing that was pretty cheap. In some ways, it was a good way to save some postage by picking up a bunch of things at the same time. So in the spirit of the older days of this blog, I figured I would present the entire haul in one go, rather than break it into separate posts. So here we go, in alphabetical order...

It's always good to start with an 'A' band. So here's an Amendment 18 (or A18) 7". 'Every Knife Has A Home' was their third 7", and this is a tour version that comes in a cool Antidote rip off sleeve:

Next, the Damage Control 'Can't keep us Down 7" on Crucial Response Records. This came out in 2002. I have about 4 copies of their full length, but literally never got around to picking up the 7" until now. This is the limited white vinyl pressing, out of 200 copies.

I also picked up this 'Raw Data Series' cover version of the same Damage Control 7". This one was out of 96 copies.

And the Damage Control 7" again, this time in a limited Camo cover. This one I like a lot. There were only 35 copies of this one made.

Next is a much more recent release. The Fall Silent 'Cart Return' 7" came out on Revelation last year. I used to like this band back in the day, so I was interested to see how this latest release sounds. Pretty similar to how they used to sound it would seem. Anyway, I picked this up on both colours - gold and red with black.

Next is the Insist 'Demo' 7". I saw this band last year and was really impressed. Their 7" on React! was a pretty good slab of straight edge hardcore, so it was good to grab this white copy of their debut recording.

And another recent(ish) release. Primal Rite have been making waves of late, and it seems that a lot of people are into what they are doing. 'Complex Life of Passion' is their first 7" which was put out by Grave Mistake records. This is the limited purple vinyl pressing, although you probably can't tell from these photos.

The second Primal Rite 7" came out on Revelation last year. Entitled 'Sensory Link To Pain', this one turns things up a notch from the previous 7".If you don't know what this band sounds like... well, you can probably figure that out from the cover art.

Next up is an older release. Remission 'Winds Of Promise' came out on React! around the time that I stopped buying everything the label put out due to a couple of questionable releases. I remember downloading this one on someone's recommendation and enjoying it, but the limited color pressings sold out pretty quick. So only about 8 years after it came out, I finally picked on up.

And finally, two copies of the Sportswear 'It Runs Deep' 7". The limited yellow vinyl copy, out of 220 copies.

And also this copy with the limited Nike cover:

Low In High School

I have been a Morrissey fan for a few years now. But never before had the urge to buy any of it on vinyl. I guess partly because there weren't really any limited edition records. They're all just major label black vinyl options. That kind of stuff never really interested me, so I was happy enough with CDs (or, these days, mp3s). But recently I was in town and wandered into a record shop and found the new Morrissey LP on clear vinyl. So I couldn't resist buying it because, you know, clear vinyl is everyone's favourite.

'Low In High School' is his 400th album, and I have to say, at first it seemed disappointing. But the last two weeks it is literally all I have listened to. I think that it just needs a little more time than previous efforts. At least, it did with me.

The inner sleeve is really cool. A full colour photo on one side, then this disco sleeve effect on the other. I haven't seen many like this before.

I kinda wish I hadn't bought this in a way, as all I can now think about is whether I should chase the other 399 albums on vinyl. You know how it is - owning one just somehow doesn't seem quite right.