2012, The End Of The World?

I haven't been updating this blog nearly as much as I'd have liked in 2011 and looking forward to 2012 I'm planning to update as much as I can.  My situation has changed considerably since this time last year, I'm currently kicking it in Canada until the end of summer so I haven't got my record player with me and I'm trying to travel light so haven't been picking up nearly as many records as I would do if I was safe and cozy in Blighty.  What I have been doing however is picking up records that I couldn't pass up, be it super limited pre-orders of mysterious records or band only copies at shows over the border in the States so I have amassed a whole host of stuff I can update with over the coming weeks.  There's also a whole host of stuff I've ordered from the UK that I have just sitting at the Mother in law's front room that I'll have waiting for me later in the year so I'll hopefully be blogging about those too.  I'm driving the 9+ hours to Baltimore next weekend to the A389 FANiversary bash which I already know will be clearing me out of what little money I've been able to save since I've been in Canada. 

So that's it, I've been slack but it will be kicked into gear again, in the meantime check out my tumblr blog which is full of plenty of random crap and reblogs of mildly amusing memes and Danzig photos.

http://danielxduggan.tumblr.com

Unholy Majesty

My latest endeavour in hardcore, this is a taster from the demo tape that should be out on Hemlock 13 in the next couple of weeks, unashamedly influenced by the likes if Birth Is Pain era Ringworm, early 100 Demons and Systems Overload era Integrity.

The Owl And The Serpent


a malediction spat upon humanity,
to some time is an infinite commodity,
there is no beginning and no understanding of the end,
to the martyrs time is infinite, this is who we are,
in the midst of eternal ice, in blackest night, vile of mind,
a luckless bastard, unworthy, worthless, grotesque in form.
the wicked are known from the womb they stand among you the truly corrupt,
sullied as such until death spits them into the abyss,
look not to your neighbours look not to their hands but to your own,
not a soul among you is clean you are all steeped in filth,
until the rocks melt, until the seas burn,
the clock is ticking until the oceans burn

Rot In Hell / Moloch - Split [Feast Of Tentacles]

 I checked out Moloch about a year ago on the reccommendation of a couple of the Rot In Hell fellas, it's good shit, not surprising that the band ended up doing a split 7" then. 

This one came on a couple of different colours, I believe the pressing info was 400 on black and 100 on red.  The cool thing being the covers on the red records were printed with red ink, it's all screen printed with the inserts being done on tea stained paper.
Feast Of Tentacles have been putting out tidy little packages recently, always high wuality both musically and aesthetically. 

I missed out on any kind of special release cover for this one, I hear there was one made for the show in Nottingham but I couldn't make the trip up unfortunately.  I hope I get to see Moloch play in the near future.

Integrity - Detonate VVorlds Plague [Holy Terror]

I like Integrity, I think they're all right you know? They put out a couple of duds around 2000-2002 but everything else has been pretty much solid gold.  This new record is a collection of all of the new material written with the prodigal son Mt Rob Orr, more of a stripped down Integrity.  If you're looking for a production similar to To Die For or Humanity Is The Devil, you're shit out of luck, this is a band doing what they want and setting out to please no-one.  In fact, I'm sure if you were to not like this and then go on to tell anyone in the group, they'd be pleased, kind of like how Stewart Lee revels in the fact he isn't as popular as some of the comics you see on the panel shows on the telly. I like The Blackest Curse, it had more of a metal sound to it, this record is the one you should play to a friend who hasn't heard that band they keep seeing the kids wear the shirts of when they go to the local rock concerts.

This wasn't one of those simple pre-orders where you go to the website and order all of the colour variants at one, this was a staggered release.  Holy Terror had the purple copies (which came with the big ass patch and CD version with the extra tracks and interview) and the black while Hellfish had the yellow which didn't go on sale until a few days later, the red copies went up on Holy Terror a few weeks after I got mine in the post, these are the band copies out of 100, wish I'd known beforehand. Seriously, if you were to not go online for a week you'd probably miss out on another Integrity pre-order. I settled on just the one colour so that i at least had a copy of this on vinyl, saving money is real hard eh.

Invisible ink is something that has been used on many an Integ record in the past couple of years, this one is no exception, all of the song names on the back are written in it too which makes for a less busy but more artistic sleeve. The CD version also uses the same technique.  My copy came with a free patch, I haven't got a suitable jacket to put it on without removing a Rot In Hell one, plus I haven't even worn it out of the house yet.  Fucking sewing.

 It's hard to get a decent picture of the vinyl, in normal light it's purple, that's what colour it is officially, but try to take a picture of it in my flat and it either looks blue in the light, or nearly black when placed on the table.  It's a good tone nonetheless, I might order the red vinyl as I've seen a few posted online and it's nic, plus it's more limited so that automaticly makes it better.

Out Of Hand - Dirty South [Hemlock 13]

 Out Of Hand, the little shits, these guys used to cause so much shit when they played.  It was amazing, real shows should be dangerous, you should be worried that people are going to get seriously hurt, you should be on the look out for flying fists, feet or chairs.  These guys were the real deal.  At the time this record came out, I was broke as hell, working a minimum wage job and paying way too much on rent and bills to even contemplate buying vinyl, in fact I was selling a lot of my records to get by.  Something I have been regretting for years now.

I picked this baby up a few months back when Billy Lumm was shedding off his record collection to fund a round the world trip, I'm guessing Nate must've found a box of them after the rest sold out and made a bunch of special covers.  Correct me if I'm wrong, that is pure speculation.

Best thing about this record is the run off etching "Jon IB: CT's hardest mosher."  Ha!

I'm off out for a Nando's.

Right Brigade - S/T [Stillborn]

A little while back, batween last December and now, I found out that Stillborn records (Run by Jamie HAtebreed) were selling off a bunch of records real cheap. One of the records that was going cheap was the Integrity/Hatebreed 7" which i already owned, the thing was, to clear a bit of space they were giving away a free record with every order and the Right Brigade 7" was one of those free records. 

The record is on pink vinyl, which I have no clue as to what the pressing info is, but for such a hard band, pink wax is an ironic choice and I for one like the choice.  

 If you haven't listened to Right BRigade yet, I suggest you do, they didn't get as much hype as some of the other bands from Boston around the early 00's, but more current UK bands like Cold Snap took a lot of influence from these guys.  Definitely worth your time, they did an LP on Revelation which is a banger too, I picked that up when I ran a distro in '02/'03.

I've neglected this blog of late, mostly because I haven't been buying as much vinyl and mostly saving for a big move next month, but I have been buying the odd gem, over the next few weeks I'll get back into posting again.

November Coming Fire - Dungeness [Thirty Days Of Night / Anchors Aweigh]

Picked this up at the NCF reunion show at TDON 6 yesterday, it's a split release from TDON and Anchors Aweigh from Italy.   It never got a vinyl release when it was released through Reflections in 2006 and it's a real shame that it didn't get a vinyl release right away so it's good to see these labels stepping up and finally getting this gem cut on record four years later.

Artwork is slightly altered, taking the basic feel of the original CD release and expanding it to fit the gatefold LP format nicely.  The first few copies sold at the show came with a nice little bonus for old times sake in the form of the original 2002 demo which showcases a band in a more visceral and metallic vein of bands like The Haunted or even Arkangel.  Some good gang vocals on this baby.  They only made 138 copies of it originally, although it did take a while for them to make the covers up and sell them at a show, so long in fact that the first Break In show I played in 2003 where we debuted our demo, they finally had the NCF one available.  They quickly outgrew the sound of the demo, it's good to see them still embracing it by adding this little extra in to the LP.

There were 250 records of each colour pressed, each colour exclusive to each label, I saved a bit of cash having an LP shipped from Italy by picking both up from the band, thrifty.  Good choice of colour combinations. 

The dust sleeve is signed by the band, I didn't go all fanboy and get them to do it, the first few came like it.  Kind of cool if you like that sort of thing.

It's good to see these guys getting their shit out on vinyl so long after they first called it quits, if ever there was a record from a UK band that warrants the vinyl treatment it's NCF.  Here's hoping for Canaan next.

Alaska / End Reign - Split [Fist In The Air / Worthless Nights]

This is a little bit of a landmark for all parties involved, the first vinyl release for band Alasks, End Reign plus the label Fist In The Air (Worthless Nights put out the Angst 7" already). This whole thing came together pretty fast, I first heard about it in the summer and Alaska had already started recording their side. I'm not going to review the music as such, all I'll say is both bands play a similar style of pissed off metallic hardcore in the vein of bands like Rise & Fall and Cursed. I know it's a bit of a lazy comparison but you'll agree it's pretty spot on, plus they're good bands to be compared to. Both bands are fairly new on the scene with one or two releases under their belt each and I can tell from the songs on show here that they've hit their respective strides with these batch of songs.


Artwork is crisp as fuck, a simple black and white affair by Mr Rupert who is known for handling the illustration for November Coming Fire's Dungeness LP. It's my favourite piece I've seen by him and it definitely accompanies the music well. The only bad thing isn't asthetic but packaging, the record itself was mailed inside the sleeve and one of the copies teared at the top due to the package being thrown about in transit. Anyone reading this who posts records in the mail, please make sure you remove the record from the cover when packing it for delivery to avoid this whether you run a label or are sending a record to a friend. This has happened to at least 5 of my records over the past 6 months, a pet peeve if you will.

Vinyl colour wise we've got a winner, no gawdy splatter in three separate colours on a bad base colour here, just simple clear and clear blue. The colour choice adds to the crisp look of the set, definitely a good decision.

Clear out of 150: (that isn't a pube, honest, it's record fluff, I'd just picked it up off the turntable and it had new record residue on it)

Blue out of 350:



I managed to secure a couple of pre-order covers too, these are just standard 7x7" sheets of card numbered out of 50, a nice touch and icing on the cake. I know Alaska did two lots of release covers recently, 5 of each design and End Reign have one in the works too.

Rot In Hell - Niu [A389]

This is a one sided live EP which I have on tape from Grot Records, they did a couple of different covers and I was meant to do a post about it along with a bunch of other things over the past couple of months that I just haven't got round to doing, real life eh.  Anyways we've (Santa Karla) been playing this beast in the van since I got it and it really captures the pissed off live sound that Rot have.  You can't hear the dancing but you just know everyone's losing their shit, or maybe they were just standing around not knowing what to do like at CTW, seriously, this band make me want to punch someone in the face or grab a girl inappropriately whilst picking them up when they fall over moshing to Cold Snap.  Wise up guys, this is the band you want to break your nose to.

This is out of 300 I think, all the records are on black too, you can't see too well from my amazing photographic skills but the cover is screen printed with silver ink.  The whole thing is more DIY than a regular A389 release, but coupled with the tape version and the fact it's a live recording it all ties together nicely.

Side B has the same labels as The Blackest Curse, you don't see me complaining.  It would've been cool to have a screen printed b-side but I know these were done as a kind of last minute release so there probably wasn't much time for such a thing.

Withdrawal - Unknown Misery [Wendigo]

Another from the A389 distro, I've only got this one on black so I thought it'd be cool to have a second copy on gold.  This one comes with a lyrics sheet unlike my other copy, but instead of a card cover it's a paper cover, both are colour photocopies.  I think I may copy the lyric sheet for the black record, it's better than nothing, is that the done thing? 

Haven't a clue on the pressing info for this, I guess the guys pressed it on their own label as a demo or something, it used to be that colour vinyl was rarer than black but these days a few labels use black as the rare colour, pretty weird but I can understand that.  People want to buy a record more if it's on a cool colour, if there's less black record to shift then there's less risk of being left with 10 boxes of something and more chance of shifting them on the unsuspecting newbie vinyl buying public.

Go buy a copy of this record, support Canadian.