Structures

If there‘s one thing I love more about hardcore than the actual music, it‘s the friends I‘ve made along the way. And I’m always down to support my friends in their creative endeavours. It helps obviously if I like their creative output as well. I’ve said before that if someone showed me a description of Cranial as a band, I’d probably not be into them. “Doom”, “post-metal” and “four songs in 40 minutes” are usually not buzz words and phrases that trigger my interest. But since I’m very good friends with two of the band members, I went to a bunch of their shows over the years and was never disappointed. So when they told me they were planning a release show for their latest release, I was down for it, of course. My wife and I made a day trip out of it and after dinner at one of our favorite restaurants in the city Cranial has its home base in, we got to see them perform their new songs off of Strucutes, which turned out to be really, really good.

Unfortunately, the records weren’t ready for the actual record release, but hey, that’s how it goes sometimes. Then again, one of my friends hand-delivered the record to me when we hung out, so I’m definitely not complaining. Love your friends. 

1st Press on Coke Bottle Clear on Moment of Collapse /300

Top Of The Pops 2017

My blog hasn't seen much action the last few weeks. The reason behind that is that I recently joined the club of hardcore dads and the little man has taken up most of the time, as any first-time parents will probably testify to. Anyway, we have found sort of a rhythm and the days leave some more free time again. I still have some records lying around that I picked up in the last few weeks and I'll make sure to catch up with the backlog in the nearby future.

But for now, it's that time of the year again. I can't believe another has gone by already. It feels like I just typed the year's end post for 2016. Crazy. 2017 has been a year with more ups and downs than the years before. I've seen close friends and family experience serious illnesses, death has been around my circle of friends way too much, and there have been some personal issues that close friends and also I had to deal with. Then again, 2017 saw many new friends, some friends and I started a band project, my wife and I went to a bunch of awesome shows, we got to hang out with friends from all over Germany and the world, and a very important friendship was rekindled. Plus, my wife gave birth to our first kid, so all in all 2017 has been a good year I'd say. Let's see what 2018 has to offer.

As I said before, I still have some records lying around that I haven't posted about, so the post count should be a little higher than it is, but it still would have been lower than in the years before. I took it slow in late spring/summer, kind of like last year, but I didn't finish as strongly as in past years. Oh, well.
One projection I can make for 2018 is that the first half of the year is going to see few pick ups and posts on here because I'm going to be a stay-at-home dad for half a year, which means I get to spend some real quality time with my son, but it also means that money will be tighter and buying records on a regular basis won't be in the cards.

2017 has seen some great releases in my opinion. I have noticed a tendency to buy more releases by old bands I already know and like. However, staying up-to-date with newer bands feels more and more like work. That's probably the old man in m talking. I often tell him to shut up, but it's getting harder. Luckily, I have friends who are a fair bit younger than myself and they keep me somewhat in the loop. Still, looking back on the records I bought this year and seeing which bands made my Top 10 this year, there is definitely an imbalance. Anyway, here are my Top 10 for 2017. No particular order.


Record Of The Year

Spirits - Unrest


7" Of The Year

Abuse Of Power - When Then Becomes Now


Demo Of The Year

Split between Open Your Eyes and Stand Point. They're also the only two demo tapes I picked up this year if I remember correctly. Maybe I should include tapes into my blog activities to keep track of that... Both tapes are okay, but there have definitely been years that were way better as far as demo tapes go. I know that you can listen to demos online, but that's not really caught on with me.


Honorable Mention

Free - Ex Tenebris

I still haven't picked up a copy because I missed out on the pre-order and the 7" sells for like 8+€ in  regular distros, so I couldn't bring myself to order a copy yet. 

Bridge 9 - The First 10 Years Box

Beautifully done with lots of details from what I have seen at first glance. I got my copy only this week and haven't really had any chance to sit down and spend some time with it. 

Dark Towers / Bright Lights

From time to time there comes along a band that doesn't really fit my usual taste in music, but still gets to me. I'm not really into doom, sludge, post-metal and so on, but despite that I really like Cranial. Maybe it's because I'm friends with two band members, but usually that doesn't affect me. Usually I can tell my good friends if I don't like their music and it has never affected any friendships. I saw them live at their first record release show and despite the fact that they played four songs in about 40 minutes, I never lost interest. More often than not my attention span lasts for about three and  a half minutes tops and anything longer must be really good to keep my attention. Well, Cranial manage to do just that. I also really like the artwork for this record. The record you can see here was technically only available with the boxset they made. There are 50 of these that came with an engraved wooden box, patches, posters, CD, stickers and the record of course. They really went all out with this box and in hindsight I regret not picking up one because the set in itself is a beautiful piece of art, but 50€ was still a little steep. Anyway, when I asked one of my friends if they had any records lying around because I wanted to get one, he asked me if I wanted a coloured one. Of course I did and I was all the more surprised when he told me that they had one record leftover from the boxsets, so I ended up with this 1/1 copy. It looks awesome, especially in combination with the record sleeve.

If you're into doom, sludge and post-metal, check out Cranial.