Cold Snap - Bad Moon Rising [Dead & Gone/CTW]

Dead and Gone, what a label. They've been around for ten years, put out records by Justice, On Thin Ice, Iron Age, Betrayed, Deal With It and the best one being The Break In, obviously. This is D&G #39 which is also their swan song, I'm pleased to say it's a band from my neck of the woods.  Cold Snap have put out a few records now, if memory serves they did a demo CDR, then the Glacies Incarnate 10" on Southern Rise and the split 7" with Cornered on CTW.  I've got all of those so far, but I didn't pick up all the variants until now. They've impressed me more and more each time I see them, more so since Jamie joined, that kid seems to make any band step up their game when he steps in, just look at how much On Thin Ice improved. The 4 tracks on this 7" are definitely the best they've done so far, word is a full length is being worked on now, you won't be able to believe that. This record came on 3 colour variants, the pressing info on the D&G store conflicts with the CTW one (they co-released this), so I'm going with the D&G numbers. The name of the 7" is "Bad Moon Rising," now looking over the lyrics, which aren't typical hardcore fare and bloody good, I can see why the name was picked but I still think it is both weak and Creedence-esque. Every time I hear those three words out loud I get the Creedence song in my head for an hour, which is good because I get a sweet song in my head and bad because this is Cold Snap and I should be humming crushing breakdown riffs.

The colour records are out of 150, I'm sticking by this view at the moment of me not being much of a fan of the splatter records, this one is a little different, it's three different colour splats on clear vinyl, which is kinda cool but I'd much prefer to see one of the variants as a good old single colour. UK bands take note, this is what I want.

The other colour variant is described by the band as black with a yellow centre, this I can stomach, looks kind of cool, almost like it's the first record to be pressed after the yellow run has finished and they haven't cleaned the plates.  The yellow is actually alot brighter than the photo, without the flash on it looks washed out. Would have liked for one of these to be rarer than the other, as it stands I'm sitting on a collection where each one is equal in number, how do I know which one is cooler to have?

Black is out of 200, so only 50 more than each of the colour records, I don't know if they made any tour covers for their euro/UK tour, if they did I'll kick myself for going to see Stewart Lee live last night instead of standing at the front and not moshing (I only mosh to Integrity, covers of old UK bands that no-one knows anymore and Shockwave).

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.