Safe And Sound II

I also picked up Safe And Sound's 2nd 7", Embers Still Remain. Equally as good as the first one. Really good Turning Point cover as well. 150 copies on green/black swirl.

Iron

Last summer my wife and I travelled to Copenhagen to explore the city and see one of our favourite bands. One of the bands on the bill were Iron and they put on a fantastic live show. Sadly the 7" doesn't hold up to what I saw live. It's still good and dig the music and the lyrics, but live the songs were so much better.

Enough

I really liked what I've heard from Enough so far, so picking up more of their releases was a given. One of the mailorders I order regularly from is run by the same guy doing Assault Records, which is the label that released this Enough 7". That's the reason I ended up with a pre-order copy more than two years after it was released. Green marbled vinyl. #75/158.

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.

Empowerment Meets Abfukk

Part 3 of the split series that Empowerment is doing. This time they teamed up with Abfukk, who play fast, pissed off hardcore PUNK. Who would have guessed with that kind of name, right? Once again you get one brand new song by each band plus one cover song of a German punk classic. With me, it's either total hit with Empowerment or total miss. There's no middle ground apparently. This is sadly a miss. Maybe it'll grow on me, but I have my doubts. The Abfukk side is pretty good.

It Was A Very Good Year

2014 was a really good year as far as records go. There were some really great records released this year and I also managed to pick up a lot of really cool records that had been on my want list for quite some time. I tried to come up with a Top 5 for 2014 releases and 2014 collectibles. It worked fine for the releases, but I couldn't slim down the collectibles to just five. Anyway, here goes.

2014 Releases

Dangers has been a favourite band of mine ever since I heard them for the first time. I haven't been floored by a band both lyrically and musically like that for a long time. They're also a great live band and all of the shows I've been to were great fun. 5 O'Clock Shadows At The Edge Of The Western World is not as good as their previous releases imho, which doesn't mean that much cause compared to most other bands it's still very, very good. The song of the same name however is so awesome. My #5.
Our Inner Wastelands is the first full length release by local band Zerre. Their singer is a good friend of mine, plus I know most of the other members as well, and I'm so stoked about what they accomplished with this LP. Plus it looks so good. The red variant is probably the best looking record I got this year. My #4.
I've been a fanboy of Barren ever since I heard their demo. It had been rather quiet around this band for quite some time, but this year they finally managed to release their first full length LP Anachronism. Great politically minded 90s hardcore. Awesome live band, too. Plus we share a craving for the same vegan baked good, which is definitely a big plus. XStreuseltalerYouthX. My #3.
Sweet Jesus are the surprise band of the year for me. I'd never heard of them before, despite the fact that Pat Flynn of Have Heart fame is the singer for this band. When I got their their first 7" Box, I put it on the record player and I was blown away. I had to flip this record over and over and over and over. So, so good. Their upcoming LP just might show up in my Top 5 2015. We'll see. My #2.
It's been a hard debate between me, myself and I, but in the end there could be only one release at the top of this list. Bane is my favourite band ever, just in case somebody wasn't aware of this fact (despite the 15 posts about this band in little more than a year). They decided to call it quits next year, which sucks, but they released a new LP this year, which rules. Don't Wait Up is such a good LP. I was a little afraid they might release a record that could leave a bad aftertaste, urging people to say "They should have quit a few years ago…", but this LP is so much better than I'd ever hoped for. Perfect record to end this amazing journey of this band. My #1 2014.

2014 Collectibles

I managed to pick up a lot of cool records this year, some of which had been on my want list for quite some time. Narrowing it down to just five records was impossible, so I stretched the list just a tad. There are still a few records that could have easily been in this picture, but you have to draw the line somewhere. Some of these records I got for cheap, some I had to pay a pretty penny for, some I got for free or as presents. For various reasons these records are my collectibles of the year. There's no ranking here since all these records give me joy for very different reasons. 

Greatest hardcore record of all time. Prove me otherwise.

Favourite release by my favourite band. Collection complete.

Out of the blue. Rarest release by my favourite band besides test pressings.

Birthday present by the greatest girlfriend on this planet.

There are always more variants out there than you think. Keep looking.

Record I probably listened to the most 2014. One of the wildest and hottest shows this year.

Out of the blue part II. There are still some great people involved in hardcore.

Sometimes you gotta give more. Sometimes you gotta give everything.

Not in this picture but in the one above, you can see a test pressing of Bane's final LP on End Hits Records. This one is definitely one of my pick-ups 2014 as well, but I didn't feel the need to picture it twice.

Thanks everyone for reading my blog and commenting. Keeps record collecting a lot of fun.

XXX

Give

I usually try to buy records in whatever original format they were released on. However, I have a really strong dislike towards 7"s that come with only two songs. Seems like such a waste of vinyl, plus I'm too lazy to get up from the sofa after just one song to tell you the truth. That's where the Singles Going Confetti compilation comes in really handy, which compiles all the songs that Give have released as 7"s so far. There's also a bonus song on this compilation, which made picking up this one even more attractive.
The singles compilation was released by Deranged Records and Assault Records. This is the black variant on Deranged Records out of 400.

Hounds Of Hate

While at Bis Aufs Messer record store, I also bought a copy of the Hounds Of Hate's No Redemption 7". I don't know if this is a first press or second press copy since both pressings are on black. I really liked their first LP, but this 7", which had come out before the LP doesn't do a whole lot for me, and I don't really know why. Maybe it'll have to grow on me. 

I also picked up Hounds Of Hate's 2nd LP Hate Springs Eternal. Not at Bis Aufs Messer, but I ordered from XSentientX around the same time, so I thought I'd put the two records together. For such a short lived band, they sure have a lot of (full length) releases under their belt. I was kind of disappointed by the 7", but this LP definitely makes up for it. 

XSentientX is run by the same guy who also runs Assault Records, which is the label that released the European version of this LP. This is the more limited variant. 120 of these were pressed on clear vinyl. . 

Catching Up with Assault

Keeping up with pressings of Punch records is a rather hard task as I've hinted at before. This time there's been a repress of the 2nd LP Push Pull on Assault Records. It comes on extra heavy 180g vinyl on beautiful white marble. As with the previous pressings on Assault this comes in a gatefold sleeve.

Close-up held up against the light. Looks so awesome. How can people seriously just buy CDs or listen to MP3s?

I also picked up the Demo 7" by Death Injection. If you're into SXE hardcore in the vein of early Boston bands you should definitely pick this up. Fast and angry as hell. This is the version on clear/black splatter vinyl out of 103.

Seeing that the guy running Assault Records also runs XSentientX Distro, I took the opportunity to get my hands on yet another version of Bane's final LP Don't Wait Up. This one comes on white vinyl. Equal Vision pressed 700 of these. The gatefold sleeve comes the way it should, so I guess the one my copy on yellow came in was just a singular fuck-up.

Tides

Just Went Black is my favourite hardcore band from Germany ever. I fell in love with the band in 2006 when they played a show with Good Clean Fun at one of my favourite venues. They were so good live that I just needed to pick up their records. That's when I fell in love with the band for the second time, because they also rule on vinyl. I'm still bummed that they broke up a few years ago and that I wasn't able to make it to their last show.

My favourite release by them and one of my all-time favourite records in general is their only full-length LP Tides. This one falls into the category 'perfect record'. Not only are the music and the lyrics nothing short of great, but the artwork for the cover and the inside is so well done in my opinion, too, and fits the overall tone of the record perfectly. I also really like the colours chosen for this release. I've had the versions on clear and black vinyl for the longest time, but the marbled off-white/sperm coloured one had eluded me in what felt like forever. I contacted a few people who had one, but none of them wanted to let go off it. Quite understandably.

A few weeks back I posted a picture of my copies of the LP and the 10" they released on Instagram. In my comment I added that I was still looking for a copy of the rarest version, hoping that someone might  sell or trade me the record. A few days later someone commented the picture, saying he was the former singer of Just Went Black and that he still had a spare copy of this version. So I wrote him a message and he offered to send it to me. That alone was a really nice surprise, but what was more, he told me that he didn't want anything in return, not even for shipping. Basically he told me that the record was only collecting dust standing around on his shelf and if he could help me out with my collection, he'd be more than happy to do so. Way to make me speechless and enormously grateful at the same time. Thanks again, Sven. Life can be pretty good sometimes.

Just Went Black - Tides - Assault Records - marbled off-white/sperm - /90
Just Went Black - Tides - Assault Records - black - /700
Just Went Black - Tides - Assault Records - clear - /200