Breaking Point / Wiretap! - Split [Purgatory]

Purgatory are making a name for themselves, they've put out a few records this year, I've got a couple of them, this is the newest addition. Breaking Point are from the south of England, Wiretap are from South Wales. I've not heard much of Wiretap before, I have the demo which was available for free to download and I caught them in Birmingham when Santa Karla hopped on a show last summer, but they've always kind of passed me by as a band that isn't really aimed at me. Listening to these tracks they're tightening up their sound a lot more, I suck at comparing bands to other bands so I'm not going to bother, it's not at all bad though. Breaking Point's side was a surprise, Louis is going for the kind of Cro Mags gruff melodic vocals these days, peppering a bit of that here and there throughout the two tracks (intro, doesn't count as a track) and The Mayes does a guest spot, his voice really stands out and adds to the track, normally guest spots kind of blend in or don't work at all. Nice one.

Enough about the music, I'm doing that too much, I'm writing about the records. We've got two variants here, I don't think there was a black record so it's this gaudy puke colour splatter effect first, it makes me feel ill to look at it which I think is amazing, good work on making it look rank Saker.  The photo doesn't show how ghastly it looks, the yellow is quite vibrant while the green is akin to the paint colour putrid green you used to be able to get from Games Workshop.

I'm taking an educated guess that each band chose a colour to go with, fair's fair and that. This one is a grey and white mix, this is more tasteful than the splatter effect and I think if bands decide to go with something other than the one colour, this is my preference. It goes with the artwork, which is both a blessing and a curse. It looks nice and fits with the tone, but lacks the balls to be a different colour completely, but I guess the sutrid eye rape of a splatter record covers that. Good work.

I hear there is a record release cover being worked on for the Bitter End show in CT on August 13th, I'll be there, my band is playing actually, so that'll be another copy of the record for the collection. I'm hoping for a rip of a classic HC record, I'll probably get a quick photoshop knock up they did the night before and photocopied up the corner shop, prove me wrong.

Lovewolves - A True Discourse & Ark Of The Covenant - S/T [TDON]

A month or two back TDON put up a duo of pre-orders, now seeing as I own every piece of vinyl they've put out bar the Azriel 12" and the Last Witness 7" (I'll pick up the LW one at some point), I thought I'd spring for the x3 deals of both. It helps that I like both the bands too. There was 500 copies of each bands record pressed, 100 on black, limited to the x3 package and two sets of 200 on different colours. It's good to see Lonewolves getting a vinyl release, I think Carcaroth would have been great on wax too, shame it wasn't released on it at the time. Ark Of The Covenant is pure 90's Goodlife metal, definitely the best band Darke's been involved with, the music suits his vocal style to the ground, good riffs, good breakdowns. Both of these records look like they could have benefitted from having a big hole on them, I think Lonewolves even had the artwork take that into account as the labels have a large white circle on them, maybe it cost too much, maybe I'm mistaken.

No catalogue number again, I'm pretty sure Jamie has sworn off these now, shame as I like knowing which records came out before others. On a related note I've noticed the last few Purgatory and CTW releases have omitted the catalogue number, maybe I've got too much love for them, maybe I'm old fashioned. I mean I still think you shouldn't wear the shirt of a band that's paying a show and you should wait two years after a band splits up before covering one of their songs.







Black vinyl, out of 100 each

Colour vinyl, out of 200 each:
Ark:

Lonewolves:

This next one is pretty special, it's black with clear red splatter, now since clear red is a weak colour, 40k painters will know what I mean, it doesn't show up when put over or in darker colours.

Here's a picture of it up against the light, I've got a Rot In Hell 12" with white splatter on black but this is the first one I've seen with a clear colour used with the black.