X-mas record store catch

On my way home to my parents, I decided to pay a visit to a record store on the way. I really shouldn't be spending any money right now, but I couldn't help myself, so I got these thingees:

My good friend Benny introduced me to this record years ago. I didn't give it much attention back then, but lately I've been playing it constantly, so I thought that I'd better pick it up. This is the press on Day After Records (Czech Republic) and it's on white vinyl. I don't know the pressing info on it. Culture.....SHOCK!. This record reminds me a lot of Vision - In The Blink Of An Eye. To me they have similar ways to build up songs.

Next is a record I also got into a bit late:

Blue Monday - Rewritten on Turquoise vinyl /250. When I picked this one up at the store I thought it was the most common color, but as it turns out, both the purple vinyl and the picture disc is more common. I got into Blue Monday through What's Done Is Done and I liked it a lot. I just kinda forgot about them and only noticed this record about a year ago.

The next record is 7 Seconds - Take It Back, Take It On, Take It Over on Side One Dummy Records. Legendary 7 Seconds still got the melodic aspect and this record might be more punk that it is hardcore. Serves them right, because they've been doing that from the start.

Last but not least I got three 7"s as well... Not gonna elaborate on it, cuz they're classics I somehow managed to miss.

Two times the bay got me.

I'm in the middle of my winter-exams and frankly I'm a little, if not to say a lot behind on my reading. Therefore this post will be short, because right now I should be reading about sociology, welfare state and political ideologies.

The bay threw some great records at me a couple of weeks ago, here's the first one:

It's the last to complete my CBK (Victory part) collection; Comeback Kid - Wakte The Dead on solid baby-blue vinyl out of 330. Even though there are 330, this one is significantly harder to come by than it's limited equivalent debut full-length Turn It Around on red vinyl w/ red labels (out of 300). This one rarely sees the light of day on Ebay and are the hardest of all the CBK records on Victory Records to come by.

Next is a record I felt was needed in my collection for a long time. A record that to me is one of the brightest releases in 80s hc:

Insted - Bonds Of Friendship on black vinyl. This, along with Vision - In The Blink Of An Eye, is probably the best record to emerge from the 80s hc scene(s).

Giant order from XsentientX.com

I recently decided to break up my huge AFI collection, only to keep one of each full-length release and to be able to buy a bunch of new stuff.

Let me paint you a picture. It's a typical Sunday night, I'm at home watching American football and browsing through different vinyl distros and then I stumbled across this German distro that carried A LOT of the stuff I have been meaning to order. It's the guy who runs Assault Records, who has this distro xsentient.com.
I emailed Jan (who runs it), and said that I was planning on placing a huge order, and wanted to know if I could get a good deal on the shipping. To my big surprise he only asked for 10 euros to ship about 25 pieces of vinyl... That kind of settled it.
So, with the most expensive parts of my vinyl collection on Ebay and the rest sold to a local vinyl store, I had the funds I needed to place this huge order.
I'm not gonna write about each vinyl, cuz I'm really lazy today for nu apparent reason.
Here's what I got..

12":

Another Breath - Not Now, Not Ever (Silkscreened cover, white vinyl)

Judge - What It Meant Discography 2LP (Black vinyl)
Birds Of A Feather - The Past The Present LP (brown swirl vinyl)
Birds Of A Feather - Chaper 5 7" (black vinyl)

Let Down - Anthology (blue/silver swirl vinyl)
Ruiner - Hell Is Empty (pink/blue swirl vinyl)
The Rival Mob - Raw Life (black vinyl)
Word For Word - Keepsake (cream/black swirl vinyl)
Uniform Choice - Screaming For Change (black vinyl)
The Effort - Iconoclasm (blue vinyl /250)
Said And Done - Everyday (red vinyl /375)
Lewd Acts - Black Eyes Blues (Coke vinyl /500)
Gorilla Biscuits - Start Today (black vinyl)
Defeater - Travels (brown vinyl /900)
All For Nothing - Can't Kill What's Inside (clear vinyl /300)

7":

The First Step - What We Know Sessions 7" (white vinyl)
Golden X - s/t 7" (black vinyl)
Keep It Clear - s/t 7" (orange vinyl /125)
Miles Away - Brainwashed 7" (white vinyl)
Right Idea - Demo 2008 7" (white vinyl)
V.A. - Youth Crew 08 Compilation 7" (yellow vinyl)
Up Rights - Old School Revenge 7" (black vinyl)
Have Heart . Demo 2003 7" (yellow vinyl /125)
Mindset - Realpower 7" (black viny, 1st press /500)
Get The Most - Moment In Time EP (black vinyl)
Get The Most - Common Goals EP (black vinyl)

Calm before the storm!

The following three packages is the calm. I placed a humongous order at a German distro this week, so they should be here next week! That doesn't mean I wasn't filled with anticipation when I got these records.

The first one actually came about a week ago, but I haven't gotten around to post it. I didn't really know much about Rise And Fall before a friend wrote in his Facebook status that their new record was awesome. I figured I better check it out, and boy was he right! I pre-ordered the record immediately from Deathwish, only to see that I didn't do fast enough to get the most limited color. Well, serves me right, because I had been sloppin' on some other pre-orders but made it get the rare colour. I guess I can't do that every time... Then again all them hc-kids are lying at wait in the Deathwish-bushes just to storm out and attack each time a pre-order comes up! Did someone say Converge pre-order??
Anyway, maybe I can make my piece with having this exact color, because it literally looks like the receiving end of the sewer on Thanksgiving:

You can tell it's a Deathwish release just be looking at the cover, which isn't a bad thing, but a little bit diversity would be nice.
This brown/bronze color is out of 700.
The one thing that got me into this release was how track 2 "Built On Graves" reminded me of my Black Metal period. That guitar-riff is evil as fuck! With that being said, my overall impression is that they put a lot of work into thge construction of the songs and that they have tried to make it a more diverse experience to listen to the record from frist to last track. Something which they didn't have as much success with on Into Oblivion imo.

Next thing up is my little mission to collect one of each of Bane's new 7" releases. Apparently some of them aren't being released on vinyl. As I understand it, they have/are releasing a total of 6 different releases, on 5 different labels. I don't remember the time in the titles of the releases, but they called, Dublin, Boston, Rome, Los Angeles, Perth and Tokyo. The last two is not out on vinyl. I got Dublin, have pre-ordered Rome, will pre-order Los Angeles and just got Boston today:

Ordered from Triple B Records. They require that overseas buyers order at least two items, so I grabbed the Downpressor 7" even though I might not have ordered it if this requirement wasn't there.
Anyway:
Downpressor - Age Of Ignorance (Green vinyl) /300
Bane - Boston 6:58 pm (Red vinyl) /700

Last but in the direct opposite of least is my Ebay winning for now; the last two Our Turn 7"s. I now have all three. Our Turn is an amazing youth crew band and I am annoyed to hell that these guys aren't around anymore!

Our Turn - Demo (Transparent orange vinyl) /??
Our Turn - Catch Your Breath (Clear vinyl) Posi-fest press, stamped /225

Catch Your Breath is easily one of the best YC 7"s in many years imo. It was released on the cool label Youngblood Records, which also released, along with React Records, Carry On - It's All Our Blood!

Stuff from the HC show last night....

Me and my good friend Benny and a woman who was doing a report on straight edge went to a hardcore show in Lund, Sweden last night. Both Benny and me knew people from some of the Portuguese bands who were playing. Besides the two Swedish bands Balance and Hårda Tider, the line-up was top quality bands from Faro, Portugal: Pressure, Broken Distance and Critical Point. I was really siked to see Pressure and Broken Distance. All three Portuguese bands included members from the infamous Pointing Finger, a very beloved band, that sadly isn't around anymore.
Here's a little picture from last night:

And here's what I got from their merch-table:

I never got around to order this one from React, so when I saw it here, I thought that I better grab it now. Great record, very straight forward!

I bought these for two different reasons. I got the Broken Distance 7" because what I heard on their Myspace page is simply amazing and I dug it right away. It's very generic and it's almost as if you can hear it's coming from the Faro-scene, if you're familiar with Pointing Finger and Pressure (This is a good thing!). They had black vinyl and this orange/black split - I figured this is the most limited, but I don't know?

I bought the Balance 7" primarily because of their show that night. I really endured their energy (especially their pissed off vocalist!) and their generic style of hardcore. I didn't know much about this band before going to this show, so I kind of took a chance with this 7" since it's always hard to judge a bands' sound from their live performance. It turned out to impress me when I put the record on the next day. It grew on me instantly, but then again I only had last night's live performance to compare it to. In Like A Loin is one of the best releases coming from Europe in a long time, and as Crucial Dave from Broken Distance said it during their show last night: "...Balance is probably one of my favourite European hardcore bands at the moment..."... It might not have been those exact words, but you get the point.

Last but not least I got a tour edition of the Pressure 7". This is limited to just 30 copies and I was lucky enough to grab one while they had them. It's an amazing hardcore 7" and these Portuguese people continue to impress me, and they're really cool and down-to-earth-people too. Very important. Here it is:

Limited tour edition #23 out of 30.

They're to be looked at, never played!

This "article" include several purchases, unlike the previous ones where I've tried to contain one purchase in each. My laziness prevented me from posting these purchases right away, so this is going to be a rather long post.
First I got the first full-length by Count Me Out from a dude on the deadformat.net trading board:

Count Me Out - 110 on solid yellow vinyl out of 331 on Indecision Records. I first got acquainted with CMO about a year ago when I first heard their second full-length entitled Permanent. Solid hardcore, and if I were to review Have Heart, I'd claim them to be in the vein of Count Me Out.

My order from Reflections Records arrived yesterday, I got this LP and an Outspoken shirt. Love this album:

I always tend to compare this release to Vision's "In The Blink Of An Eye" and don't really know why, they both just have something in the sound that I really like.

Next in line is a Sinking Ships 7" limited to just 8! SS collectors might ask, what the hell... I didn't know if this!?! It turns out that the guy from SS who runs Excursion Records found 8 extra of this Sinkings Ships 7". So he numbered them and gave people on the React board first shot at them. I was quick enough to get my hands on a copy:

Sinking Ships was put to rest way to early, but they released solid stuff in their time. This most definitely being one of them.

I went on a one-day trip to Esbjerg, only to pay Bogormen a visit, and here's what I brought home with me:

This is one of my two favourites by Tom Waits. The first track "Alice" is one of the most beautiful songs I have ever heard. This is very most like Blood Money, only a bit more diverse.

Original pressings of Sigur Rós records are quite expensive, so when they first reissued "Ágætis Byrjun" and "( )", I ordered those right away. I hoped for a reissue of "Takk...", since I missed that one when it first came out. It came about a couple of months ago and I picked it up in Esbjerg. It was relatively expensive, but considering what it contains, I guess there's no need to complain. 2 DMM Vinyls and a 10" etched b-side in a stunning thick cover. This is the last Sigur Rós I decided to buy, since I don't really like the newer stuff.

New AFI record is surprisingly good, compared to the last one, Decemberunderground. Even though the cover may indicate Duran Duran, the music is much more like Sing The Sorrow tha Decemberunderground, and I appreciate that. Track 3 entitled End Transmission is stunning in particular. The single from this album called "Medicate" is... average. I don't really understand why this is the single. It even came out on two different 7"s.

I had a great opportunity to stock up on some classics, which I have been meaning to get for some time, but never got around to buy. Now was the chance, so I picked up 4 great classics from two legendary hardcore bands, which everybody are familiar with, I presume.
There's really no reason to eloborate any words on YoT. Even though I haven't been listening to them for that long, I know through books and word of mouth that it's one of the most essential straight edge hardcore bands ever. These three records are probably the core of what I endure about the first wave of straight edge hardcore, along with 7 Seconds, Gorilla Biscuits, Bold and Uniform Choice. Speaking of 7 Seconds, I picked up The Crew - a record my good friend Benny introduced me to several years ago when we both lived in Esbjerg. It's muc more melodic, but make no mistake about that, it's still straight edge hardcore smeared all over your ears. Bogormen had like 4 copies of this...

And speaking of old goodies, here's some, to a lesser extent, classics I also got:

I haven't found Speak Out by Bold yet - not that it's hard to find, I just bought other stuff instead, but this MLP entitled Looking Back is really good as well. It's no Speak Out, but still good. I also wanted Value Driven by Better Than A Thousand, but I haven't found that one yet, so when this one was available for 80kr. (app. $16) I picked it up right away. Ray Cappo's BTAT is just m,y cup of tea, with the ribght amount of melodic rifss and the right amount of old school hardcore! Dag Nasty is a bit too melodic for me in comparisation.

Here's just a little addition to my CBK collection. This version is still available everywhere, I just had to pick it up at some point. Didn't really know if I wanted to include the Victory releases in my CBK collection, since I can't stand that label, but I am only missing one of 'em now, so what the hell....

Here are some CBK records I won on Ebay in one lot - was missing to of them:

From left to right:
white, red w/ labels, gold, red/clear w/ labels. I've got two of the white and the red one now, but I had to have the two others. now there 7 CBK recs to go and it's complete!!