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.

Paramount

I also bought Fury's debut LP Paramount recently. I feel like the LP is a huge step forwards compared with the 7". Some really good songs on there. The purple looks pretty good too. I also included the promo tape for the LP, which was given to me by a buddy trying to convince me that Fury are good. Well, it worked. 1200 copies on purple.

Kingdom Come

I remember listening to the Fury demo when it came out, but I also remember not being terribly impressed. Maybe I should revisit that demo. Fast forward to a few months ago. I'd heard about a Praise mini tour in Europe and Fury was going to tour with them. When a buddy of mine was visiting me last autumn we got to talking about the tour and he was kind of really excited about the tour, as was I, but to me surprise he was looking forward to seeing Fury rather than Praise. He played me Fury's debut LP and I kind of liked what I heard. Fast forward to the show we were both going to. Praise were really good but to my surprise Fury were the headliner. Clearly I'd been missing something here. They played a really good set and I was positively surprised all in all. I've been listening to the 7" and the LP a bunch of times now and both have steadily grown on me. 2nd press on white out of 550 copies.

Discrepancy

A really good demo that I recently picked up. I might be late to the party because this demo was released back in 2014 and the band hasn't released anything since, but I'd really like to hear more. I really dig the Crucial Youth / Good Clean Fun vibe of the cover too. Discogs says there are only 45 copies of this on black vinyl, which I somehow find hard to believe seeing that this demo has been out for two years and I just picked it up from a distro.

Identity

I really loved the demo 7" by Fade. Not usually what I listen to, but somehow I really dug the songs. So obviously I wanted to get the rest of their releases. Here's their 3rd 7" (if you count the demo) and the songs are just as good as the ones on the demo. Maybe I'll upgrade these to colour one day. I also included the pretty cool sticker that came with the 7", since I feel that's kind of a lost art nowadays.

Trans Day Of Revenge

2nd and final 7" by G.L.O.S.S. and it's just as good as the demo 7". Bummer I never got to see them live. But sometimes it's best to quit while you're ahead. This is the European pressing on Sabotage Records.

Stand And Fight

I really liked the Stand And Fight LP and their fist 7", but I never had their demo on my radar for some reason. Shame on me. 700 copies on red vinyl.

Forever

7" compilation have gone a little bit out of style I guess. This is a good one from 1990. Yellow label version.

Turning X Point

Not much to see. Bootleg of the Turning Point demo. The quality is a little thin, although admittedly I have no means of comparison as to what the songs sound like on the demo tape or on the 7" since I own neither. It's okay for listening purposes though.

Alone In A Crowd

I've only had a bootleg copy of Alone In A Crowd's classic 7", so having the chance to get a copy of an official repress, and on colour too, was not to be sneezed at. I need some help with this one, people. I know that there are 200 copies on colour for this repress on Contrast Records. 170 are supposed to be mint green, 30 something copies are mint green with white swirls or on other shades of green, presumably from the early run of the pressings when the colours hadn't mixed right. There are some white swirls going on here, but I'm not sure if this qualifies as a swirl copy. I don't mind having 'just' a mint green copy, I'd just like to know.

I'm Not Sorry You're Here

Another awesome pick up and one of the most beautiful cover art designs ever. The lyric sheet is a little disappointing though. It's not nearly done with as much love to detail as the overall design. It's simply glued on the inside of the butterfly. I get that the printing job would have been a little bit tricky, but it's still a bit of a bummer. However, the five songs on this 7" are just so good. Great 7" all in all.

State Of Alert

Another big hole in my collection that I managed to fill thanks to my buddy. State Of Alert's No Policy 7" on Dischord. This is a 3rd press copy, which you can recognize by the band's name on the label.

In My Eyes

2017 is off to a good start. Technically I got this record two days before this year began, but I'll count this one and a few others I'll post about these next few days as 2017 pick ups. A good friend of mine told me a few weeks ago that he was thinning out his collection and since he knows pretty well what I'm into and what records I'm after, he sent me a few pictures. Of course I found a bunch of records and we quickly settled on a deal. Since there was a show coming up that both of us wanted to go to, I told him to simply bring the records along, so I didn't run the risk of the records getting lost in the mail. I wasn't really worried about the condition of the records, because he's a friend and I like to think I can trust the people I surround myself with. Anyway, the day of the show came and during one of the opening bands my buddy and I found ourselves sitting outside the venue in a freezing cold car in the dim light of a streetlight sealing the deal. Not sure what the cops would have said if they had knocked on the window while he was holding a bunch of records and I was holding a wad of cash, haha.
This is one of the records I've always wanted to have. I would have been satisfied with picking up a 3rd press for now, but getting my hands on a 2nd press for a really good price wasn't an opportunity to be passed up. There's a little bit of ringwear, but considering the age of the record, both sleeve and record are in fantastic shape. Comes with the original insert in pristine condition as well.
The only thing I'm worried about now is that I've raised the bar pretty high for collecting this year and the year is only 10 days old. Then again, what is life without challenges?

My Generation

Great compilation from the mid 2000s. So many bands that I really like from my coming off age phase in hardcore. Still I never got around to picking up a copy. Found this one in the my new local record store. 40% off, too, because this was a leftover from Black Friday last year and not - not so surprisingly - hardcore kids are scarce around here. 700 copies on green translucent vinyl.

Zwischen den Runden

Happy belated new year, everyone! Holidays mean travel time and seeing family and friends, so things have been a little slow at the beginning of 2017.

Before travelling, I finally found some time to check out this new local record store that I had found about a few weeks ago. The city I live close to is pretty small, so a brick and mortar record store opening there is pretty exciting. I didn't have any high hopes to find anything good there, because punk and hardcore are such small niches in the broad spectrum of music, but I was pleasantly surprised when I went through the shelves in the store. The selection of indie, punk and hardcore records was definitely better than I had expected.  As far as hardcore is concerned the records were mainly represses of classics, but that's not half bad. Maybe it's something to build on. I bought two records, which were two more than I had anticipated. The first pick up is the latest record of my favourite German indie band. It was already released four years ago, but I never managed to grab a copy. It's just as well though, because now I snagged the deluxe edition. LP, bonus 7", lots of extra goodies, all of which come in a beautiful box. Sadly, this LP isn't as good as the previous ones. Or maybe I just have to give it some more time and it'll grow on me.