Taking Back Sunday

Another band I got turned onto by my wife. Tell All Your Friends is the debut LP by Taking Back Sunday and it's one hell of a good debut. Really good emo-core/indie rock, whatever you want to call it. Makes for pretty good road trip music, too, I guess. This is the latest repress, the 8th press in total. 1705 copies on this brown putty vinyl.

The L-Shaped Piece Of Crap

Goddamn, Ceremony's latest LP may be one of the worst things I've ever had the displeasure of listening to. I've been a big fan of their music since the beginning and they are one of the few bands who have managed to change their style successfully time and time again, but I can't get behind their latest output. I really had to force myself to listen through the whole thing. Apparently they have been hugely influenced by Joy Division while writing this LP, at least that's what I've read a couple of times in descriptions of The L-Shaped Man. I never listened to Joy Division (kind of glad about that in hindsight), so I didn't really have a frame of reference. I know that Joy Division are hugely popular nowadays, especially among hardcore kids, but I'll be damned if I know why. Whiny vocals over boring ass music? Yawn. I rarely consider selling records I bought, but this record will most likely not be here long.
The only cool thing about this record is the artwork with the cut-out sleeve and nicely matching vinyl.

Iron Chic

Another piece in the Iron Chic puzzle. Love this band, but I haven't been very good at buying all of their releases as quickly as I wanted to. Good split all in all. This is the most common variant on plain black vinyl. 700 copies.

Rival Schools

Another Walter Schreifels band that is really, really good. Dude can't write bad music apparently. This is the latest reissue of Rival Schools debut LP United By Fate, which came out on Music On Vinyl just this year  The record comes on pretty sweet 180g swirly green vinyl, which sadly doesn't really show in the picture. Looks pretty good when you hold it up against the light. Also included is an 8-page booklet.

Great Reversals

I really liked the 10" that Great Reversals put out back in 2012 and it has become one of my most played records these last few months. Natural Burial was released last year and it isn't bad by any means, it's just not as good as the 10". Or at least, I don't like it as much (yet). The red vinyl is way more marbled in reality.

After The Eulogy

After The Eulogy is a very important album to me. Rookie was one of the first songs I got introduced to  when I got into hardcore and subsequently After The Eulogy became an album I listened to frequently. I had a copy which I foolishly traded away a few years ago. Once again I thought it'd be easy to get another copy, which turned out to be completely wrong since the price kind of skyrocketed these last few years and even though I love this LP I wasn't going to pay an arm and a leg. A few months ago I found a relatively cheap copy on discogs, bought it and never received it because it was lost in the mail. The seller refunded me the money, so it wasn't a total loss, but I still didn't have a copy. Fast forward to two weeks ago. Another copy for a fair price popped up on discogs and I snagged it right away. Patience pays. This red copy is part of the first press and is out of 1013.

Fiddlehead

This 7" is somewhat unusual… When you see the bands the members of Fiddlehead played in, in combination with the label this record was released on, you probably wouldn't expect the kind of music you get to hear. Think the early to mid 90's, think Jawbreaker, think Seaweed, think a little Fugazi and you're getting close. Amazingly, it works (for me). Wouldn't mind seeing an LP one day. 700 copies on black vinyl. There are also 300 on clear vinyl apparently.

Enough

The cool thing about collecting records is that you get to know a lot of new people through buying, selling or trading. Sometimes these are just brief acquaintances, sometimes you hit it off and really connect. Enough was recommended to me by one of the nicest people I've ever traded with and hopefully will trade even more in the future. I had this band on my radar but never got around to picking up any of their releases. I fixed that mistake now and I must say I really dig this band. Kind of cliché artwork with most of the releases, but at least you know what you get even before listening to the band. This is the 2nd press of Something We Can Build. There are 93 yellow marbled copies.

Better Than Record Store Day

RSD 2015 - check. As I said before, I didn't have much interest in this year's RSD or for that matter the whole event as such. There were two records I was interested in and I finally snagged the second one. Two reasons made picking up this record quite appealing a) the red vinyl looks pretty good with the cover and b) I didn't have a copy until now. Mission accomplished.
Fellow SXE kids will probably faint at this statement (or drop their edge due to the shock), but I like Cappo's vocals for Better Than A Thousand much better than for Youth Of Today. Less howling and growling, which has always been the main reason I've never been that much into YOT. There, I said it.

Dis/Content

After debating it with myself for a seemlingy neverending long 5 minutes, I caved in and ordered the regular presses of Spirits' Discontent LP. Good choice. Definitely one of the front-runners for the Packaging of the Year Award 2015.

Cover with OBI strip and the first layer of the artwork. You'll see...

Actual cover and the LP name.

Slide it open and you get the inner sleeve with the last layer of the art work. Lyrics are printed on the back.

They picked out some amazing looking colours as well. The black/clear smoke is out of 200.

Finally, red/clear smoke out of 350.

Jungbluth

This 10" is probably going to be one of my favourite releases this year. Jungbluth is a band from Germany that plays their own blend of dark, brooding hardcore and screamo. Karl Jungbluth, whom the band is named after, was a German communist and was active against the Nazi regime. He was executed in January 1945 because of his anti Nazi activities. With a name like that it is kind of obvious that the band has something to say. The lyrics are highly political, which is something a lot of bands nowadays leave to be desired.
This 10" is actually the vinyl release of the band's demo tape, which originally came out in 2012. I really liked the tape and have played it a lot since it came out, but I always thought it'd be cool to have it on vinyl as well. So when I read that the band was about to release it as 10", I jumped on it. Just like the demo tape, this 10" is self-released. What makes this release really special is the fact that all the profits are donated towards a German non-profit organization that is dedicated to helping refugees - Pro Asyl. You also get an explanation why the band has decided to do that and on Pro Asyl itself. Really cool idea for a noble cause. Great to see that 'more than music' is not just an empty slogan for some bands.

Few And Far Between

So far, this month kind of has been unofficial Count Me Out month I guess, but hey, I'm not the one selling all these records at the same time. This 7" is pretty rad. Just look at the cool 'Sid and Nancy' before and after cover. The pink marble looks really awesome, too. As far as the music goes, the songs sound a little rougher and more ferocious than the songs on the LPs, which works really well in my opinion. There are 110 copies of this variant.

110

I've said it before and I'll say it again, Count Me Out is a very underappreciated band. Which incidentally works out for people like me, since you get their records at very good prices. From the same seller I bought the record release edition of the Permanent LP I also got this coloured copy of Count Me Out's 110 LP. 331 copies on solid yellow. If anyone has a copy on pee colour or the summer tour pressing (#110/black vinyl) they want to get rid off, you know where to find a taker.

Permanent

The Count Me Out collection is coming along nicely. I made a few nice additions these last few weeks that I'll post about shortly. Let's kick it off with the record release edition of the Permanent LP. As you can see red was the colour picked for this edition. There are 145 copies of this variant.