Blood Ceremony - Living With The Ancients [Rise Above]

I got this double LP for Christmas, I’m on a catch up tip at the moment.  I’d never heard of this Toronto group until it was announced that Ancient VVisdom were going on tour with them and Ghost so I decided to check them out as I literally know of no other band that are similar to AVV and I’m willing to check out any band with a female vocalist in case it blows me away as much as Rose Kemp did when I first heard her.  Whilst Blood Ceremony didn’t hit me for six like Rose did, they certainly got my attention when I hear lyrics about the great god Pan and the flute solos dotted about the record, colour me interested. 

Anyways, I got this for Christmas off the missus, not knowing if it’d come on colour or what, turns out it was the green vinyl version and it’s a double gatefold too, bonus.  The Rise Above pressing info lists all of the variant colours as out of 300, the band didn’t have any copies with them when I caught them live in Toronto last month so good job I managed to get this one from the record store.

The band themselves look like they’re straight out of the 60’s, one of them needs to admit the fact he’s not as thick on top anymore and shave it while the singer does a good job of channelling Kate Bush’s moves on stage.

Organized Crime Halloween MMXII Package

The last couple of years Organized Crime records have listed a mysterious halloween package on their store, last years sold out real fast and an iPhone paypal error caused me to miss out on the records but I managed to score the shirt.  I subsequently ended up being gifted a glow in the dark copy of the Integrity In Contrast Of Sin 7" from Jamie Farrell last year which I'm immensely grateful for but never ended up blogging about, one day.

Anyways, this year I was bang on the ball, I'm not missing out on one two years in a row, like last year they kept the actual details under wraps and only asked for your shirt size so we knew only one thing.  Now OCR hadn't put out much in the year before, they did the Harder They Fall flexi 7" but I wasn't expecting a glow in the dark version of that, what we ended up with came a little out of left field, but not by much.

If you were hoping to be spoiler free until your copy turns up then I'd suggest not scrolling any further because there are gratuitous record pics from beyond the wax seal.

I'd already had a little spoiler of what I was to expect through some online friends (ooh, fwend) so the surprise was dulled a little, I still couldn't wait to get my hands on a copy.  What we have here is a split 6" record from Rot In Hell and Vegas.  The RIH side features what I'm assuming is the last song featuring Mr Nathan on vocals before they become Rot In H8000, VVegas offer up a haunting acoustic number, it was always going to be that or something blisteringly heavy.  For some reason the lyrics don't match up to the vocals on the RIH side, don't know what happened there.

I've never heard of a record coming on a 6 inch, now I have. Here's a comparison next to a 7" just for shits and gigs.

Everything on the outside packaging is screen printed, the wolf logo is the same as used on the shirt and the respective band logos are on the sleeve, it came with a silver sticker amalgamating both band logos too.

I probably wouldn't have opened this had I not read elsewhere that the wax seal was put over a round sticker that allowed you to prize it open with a knife without breaking the wax.  Had I not opened it I'd have had to settle on not knowing exactly what was inside the envelope.  Holy Terror, pushing the boundaries of art.

Integrity / Rot In Hell – Split [Thirty Days Of Night]

 Back in February 2010 when we were all a little more fresh faced than we are today, Thirty Days Of Night announced they were about to unleash pre-orders for a split 7 inch by Integrity and Rot In Hell.  I shat my pants at the time, like a lot of people because with this announcement Rot had just ended their Deathwish requested release freeze before the LP dropped (they still delayed it a while longer but that's a different story).  Anyway, a few nights later when the pre-orders went up I cancelled my plans to go to the movies and waited anxiously for the TDON store to be updated with the new bundles,  I ordered the most limited black copy plus the standard green/blue mix there and then.  I thought nothing of it at the time but no-one would have believed that we were to wait a further 18 months to get our hands on the things.  I won’t go into detail about it all because it’s been well documented elsewhere, I’m just here to give a bit of background and to blog about vinyl. 

This puppy is one of the band only copies on white vinyl out of 100 which I ordered direct from the band on the holy terror site, the records from TDON are safe and sound at the in-laws place.   Both records are housed in a black dust sleeve, it's good to see them opting for a corresponding colour rather than just the standard white paper, it's the attention to detail that I like most about records from these two bands.  This is a double 7" with the first record holding the actual split and the second being a kind of noisy accompaniment to the illustrations within the book by Herr Hellion.

 

The original idea was to have it housed within a hardback book but that didn't happen due to circumstances out of the band and label's control so it ended up being a double gatefold with a booklet inside which is still pretty different if you ask me.  It's full of creepy photographic art and messed up drawings of a fawn guy ripping a hole into another dimension and bringing forth all kinds of beasties.

Dwid saw fit to sign each of these copies which is a nice touch, makes the band only part of the press that little bit special.  Don’t expect to see any of my bands doing this though though, I think the record buying public would frown upon receiving their copies with my name scribbled all over it in wax crayon like the scratchings of a 30 year old man child.  We’d have our money requested back via paypal with a note saying “thanks a lot Duggan, you ruined hardcore.”

In all seriousness, it’s good to see this thing released and in the hands of the fans hands, the Rot tracks on here are tidy as usual, I’ve had the songs for a little while on the down low but you didn’t read that here.  Oh and pick one of these up if you’re a Colohan completist, just saying.  Integrity released the songs on here on their Detonate Worlds Plague 12" which I guess is technically an EP, this split was scheduled to come out ages before that record but it didn't so quit you're bitching.

Ringworm Shiz

Just before christmas last month it got dead cold but didn't snow, it just stuck in the -2 to -10 zone and forced me to dig out the ultra warm North Face coat I was forced to buy as a result (not a bad thing in my book).  So I was checking twitter around the 10th of December and noticed one of my favourite groups of all time, Ringworm, were playing in a weeks time in Buffallo which is about an hour or so's drive from me.  As luck would have it I wasn't working so I jumped in the motor with the missus and strolled up to the show, they were playing with a few bands who I wasn't interested in and Every Time I Die who also come under that header for me.  As I walked in the band before Ringworm were just finishing up their final song so I didn't have to wait and ETID were on after them so it looked like I was in for an early night.  $12 in and I didn't have to sit through anyone I didn't like, perfect show for me then.

Let's get this post on track then, Ringworm had just released a split 7" on A389 with Australia's Mindsnare, seeing as I'd just moved to another country I didn't have the funds to order one of these online during the preorders so it was a perfect time to pick up both the colour and black versions.  I don't know the numbers or anything but I'm assuming the purple is the rarer colour, it's a cool kind of semi translucent record which goes perfectly with the artwork courtesy of the Human Furnace.  The record is housed within a 7" sized comic book which includes a cool little dig at Victory records which I always welcome in 2012. 

This is the standard black, kids these days tend to not buzz over black records and prefer to gush over a clear 12" with three alternating splatters mixed in to resemble something an student would cough/spew up after 48 hours of solid drinking on freshers week.  I can understand not buzzing on a black record due to the fact it's not the rarest colour but I've noticed a bunch of labels recently using black as the more limited variant and making the main press colour so you never know kids, your black could be super rare.  In this case, it's not.

 Something I'm sure a lot of people know about and that I find a nice touch is that most of a389's releases use the same template on the A and most of the time B sides which I think adds a continuity to the records. It's normally a black background but sometimes it's changed to match the colour of the artwork like here on the Integrity To Die For 10 inches. 

At the same show the band had the Madness Of War demo 7" which was also released on a389, originally released on cassette in  the late 90's after the band came out of hiatus, the songs made their way onto Birth Is Pain albeit rerecorded.  This baby is pressed on a flexi, now I've seen a couple people perplexed by this format on a number of blogs saying they've never seen one.  Now I'm not old enough to remember when these were on the front of the NME but I do remember owning a bunch of Thunderbird flexi's that came on the front of the Frosties boxes.  They were pretty much my only records until I bought the Partners In Kryme classic "Turtle Power" single in 1990.  Ninja Turtles started by vinyl addiction...

Here's a picture of them both together:

The band copies I think were out of 50 on clear and the black was out of 200, I could be wrong so correct me with your knowledge in the comments.  What's cool about these is the fact that the silver ink used on the label makes the clear version look inverted or non-inverted depending on the background behind it. 

I received a couple of copies of both the Scars LP and the Birth Is Pain LP repress from Victory the day before I left for Canada, I did't take any pictures of them so if I remember once I'm home, I'll do a post about them.  I'm pleased Ringworm are done with their Victory contract, it's a shame they hooked up with them just before the label turned to absolute shit and started putting out A Day To Remember and other such rubbish.

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.