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hardcore records on ebay — aggregated and examined
It’s the 25th Metal Monday which is sort of a milestonish number. The first real “Metal” song I consciously remember hearing was Metallica’s “Creeping Death”on the playground in the 5th grade. It was on the walkman of a fellow student who of course, had borrowed it from an older sibling. I remember being positively frightened and enthralled by it. This was for sure, the only song I’d ever heard with a backing chorus of voices chanting “Die…Die…Die…” over and over. It was menacing and heavy and strange from all the echoing. As a 20-something I eventually came back to the song when Ride The Lightning became the number one choice to play on repeat for computer lab all-nighters. I’m not sure how the other students took this, but they probably just kept listening to Dark Side of The Moon and The String Cheese Incident on their headphones.
Music For Nations of course had a deal with Megaforce to issue Creeping Death as a 12″ single in Europe adorned with cover art of an ominous fantasy landscape in greens and blues which was painted on the back of hundreds of denim jackets in the state of New Jersey alone. The 12″ was issued of a few different collectible colors, 3 of which I’ve linked here, which are fairly tough to find. The b-side of course is the original Garage Days Re-Visited E.P. with the fairly well known covers of Am I Evil (Diamondhead) and Blitzkrieg (by the band of the same name), both middle school favorites of some of my friends.
Technically I should be listing this on a metal designated day, but somehow there’s never any copies for sale on Mondays, and I think a case can be made that Repulsion’s “Horrified” is basically an accidental hardcore record anyway. Repulsion were a band of metal heads in the wrong time and the wrong damn place - early 80’s Flint Michigan. I really can’t think of a worse place to be in the USA then. These guys were born and bred metal heads, but they had punk and Hardcore sympathies so while they were following the progression of bands like Slayer, Possessed, Death, and Celtic Frost, they were also catching onto the extreme sounds of Discharge, Siege, C.O.C., NYC Mayhem, and D.R.I., as well as the tasteless shock punk of G.G. Allin. Repulsion were ahead of their time because they could make the connection between something like Siege and something like Possessed. That the brutality and delivery were different, but still similar, and related to each other.
When they recorded their Horrified lp it was actually supposed to a be a demo called, Slaughter Of The Innocent. The idea was they would produce the best possible sounding demo they could with their entire current set list, and then use the recording to secure a record deal. Apparently tension ran high with the band and the studio engineer who not surprisingly, found their punk metal hybrid to be trash, and gave very little attention to detail during the session, but in the end I think that may help make this recording what it is (godly). The 2 guitars are panned hard right and hard left, the vocals are shouted hoarse and without any echo or sign of overdubbing, the drums are a blasting racket, and the bass… whata bass sound. Apparently there was some screw up when they were recording forcing the band to record a second track of bass over top of the other one which was too faint on most of the tracks, so it was decided it would be run direct into the board through a fuzz pedal. Easy on the ears it’s not. Saturated, blown out, and fucked up it certainly is, and it helps to cement the entire thing as a distorted “shit-fi” whirlwind of a recording. The style of recording alone sounds more hardcore than basically any of the bands Repulsion was influenced by. It’s abrasive even by today’s standards. The songs themselves are possibly the fastest recorded up to that point in time in metal, and are stripped to the bone for maximum speed potential. Only 3 even break the 2 minute mark and there’s not a high note or attempt at singing in sight. Repulsion may not have intended to be, but for all intents and purposes they were as hardcore as anyone else in 1985, or now.
Sadly, and not surprisingly this demo wasn’t exactly a hit with any labels. The band say they sent it everywhere, hoping to get some money to record what they saw as a proper album, and at best they were told, send a copy of the next demo. No one got it because they were all looking for another Slayer. The band dejected, depressed, and out of steam, fizzled later in the year. But like the zombies that adorned the very flyers they were billed on, Repulsion was soon exhumed from their own coffin… well kind of. Less than a year later Napalm Death had recorded their debut lp, and it became a novelty success in the UK. John Peel loved it, parents hated it, kids had to have it, and everyone was asking “where did you come up with this shit”. Pretty much the whole band credited Repulsion as one of their main influences and suddenly people were busy tracking down copies of their demos (some of which were issued under their previous name Genocide). When Carcass exploded onto the fledgling grind-core scene soon after there was no stopping things. Soon Carcass front man Jeff Walker had his own imprint subsidiary on Earache (who released Napalm Death and Carcass’ albums), and his first project was basically remixing the Slaughter of the Innocent demo and releasing it as the 18 song Horrified lp. Retribution. It was strictly for the diehard, but finally the planet had caught up to where Repulsion had been, and grind-core mania was on.
So this is that original pressing released in ‘89 that I’ve linked. Since then its been issued a few different times. Most recently with a bonus lp containing most of the band’s other demos on Southern Lord that’s worth every cent if you’re unfamiliar.
Metal Monday 24:
In hindsight, knowing what we know now about Fenriz and Nocturno Culto, having seen the many you tube videos, or the bonus footage that came on the reissued Darkthrone CDs, explaining the making of albums in slurred voices spilling booze on themselves, Transylvania Hunger (this is the original RARE Peaceville pressing) could have all just been a big joke. I just imagine them laughing about all of the extremity and sloganeering in the black metal scene and being like “let’s make a record that’s all one tempo - fuck it”. From the outset though it’s one of the most hypnotic and majestic black metal releases ever. Recorded on an 8 track with lots of tape noise, buzzing mosquito guitars, and drums that sound about the same as cardboard boxes as they speed along in endless paddle beats - it’s a rigid set of limitations. But limiting themselves so much seemed to bring out more expressiveness in their sound than ever. The dark and sweeping melodies of the title track will stick in your head forever if you hear them once, and it’s an important statement because of that - these songs are addictive. Darkthrone and black metal in general often centered on consciously regressive themes, but by 1994 most of their peers were making records that were becoming increasingly complex and in some cases progressive. For better or worse they were able to prove that all of that was secondary to the feeling and spirit of the songs. Transylvanian Hunger is the ultimate “less is more” moment in metal because it so completely qualifies the sentiment. There are no keyboards, nothing was recorded in an airplane hanger, there isn’t a producer, it’s truly RAW. Maybe totally stripping away all the Celtic Frost parts from previous and subsequent albums allowed for a more soulful and honest delivery. Maybe this was all serious and just what the band was feeling at the time; that regression and primitiveness are the truest expression of “black metal”. Either way, directly or indirectly, this album has been responsible for hundreds of home recordings by alienated, evil obsessed youths, obviously though no matter how good these offspring are, they can never surpass this release in influence or inspiration.
Always good for a cloudy day, a cold night, or a bad week. I <3 Transylvania.
Darkthrone - Transylvania Hunger LP (Peaceville pressing)
Metal Monday #23
Okay, just for the front and back covers alone I have to put up this Bulldozer - The Day Of Wrath lp for Metal Monday. The front features one of the members dressed as a vampire being repelled by a big crucifix making a ridiculous face, which is funny enough, but the back has a promo photo of the band that is so priceless. I mean… just look, all 3 of them look so next level with mustaches, cut off shirts, aviator shades… I don’t even know what to say. Maybe it all adds up when you account for the fact that they’re Italian, and the horror movie tradition there is beyond camp.
As for the music on here - a very fine entry in the Motorhead/Venom/Hellhammer camp. Driving distorted bass metal. They definitely have at least, a decent amount more skill than Venom had at their height, and this also helps the songwriting a bit. Even though Venom were great songwriters and did cool stuff with very little, Bulldozer are able to use their technically superior chops to distinguish themselves, and keep songs interesting. I’m a big fan of the song Whiskey Time which has a classic example of an on-the-record drum solo, although it’s not a particularly good one. I assume the other 2 members drank whiskey during this part live. The song itself rips like any great punk/metal hybrid should and would seem as at home in the GBH catalog as Venom. Another killer cut is Welcome Death which is a slower track and opens up with a riff that sounds like it was written by Trouble.
Metal Monday - 22
Black Sabbath Bloody Tour shirt
Iron Maiden 1984 tour long sleeve
PS: Tip of the hat to Nick from Prema. I posted some of his auctions a couple weeks ago and definitely laid into his former band and 90’s HC in general, he emailed me though, and was a good sport about it all. He’s currently busy doing mega-deluxe metal vinyl like a Rotting Christ boxset, and a gold (yes actual gold) Mayhem lp. I have no idea where you even order something like that but as soon as I know I’m moving to exclusively release records on that format.
Voivod was never your average thrash band, even when they were trying to be, they weren’t. They were always kind of weird and angular. Their first lp War and Pain is an anomaly for the time. It’s clearly based off early Venom, Metallica, and Slayer, but it strays so far from the paths laid out by those groups that it has relatively little in common with them. The recording is strange, with what seems to be only a single bulldozer guitar track laid down with a layer of chorus and reverb (there to thicken it up) by the incredible Denis D’Amour: AKA Piggy (R.I.P.) . Solos are played live on the main track (rather than punching in like most metal records of the day) leaving bassist Jean-Yves Thériault, AKA Blacky, to carry the rhythm with his thick and over-driven sound. Things never manage to sound too thin, in part due to the spaced out shimmering chorus effects on the guitar and crunchy bass, but also due to the thundering drumming Michel Langevin, AKA Away, who overcomes the rather mediocre drum production (sounds like big plastic buckets in a large concrete room). The songs themselves kind of roll at a Venom clip, but with bizarre riffy twists and turns, weird chords, and a sci-fi atmosphere.
Voivod’s imagery was steeped in post apocalyptic sci-fi and technological nightmares from the get-go, and the wild guitar sound cultivated on this album fits with that perfectly. Away was actually responsible for their logo design, and all their album art/layout which, much like their music, broke with the norms of the day for thrash bands. Instead of the Boris Vallejo inspired airbrush fantasies most metal bands were using, Away painted surreal, abstract, pictures of grotesque machines, covered in primitive looking weaponry, and grime. His approach could be described possibly as Cubist (props to metal-inquisition) in tradition on the cover of War and Pain, featuring a stylized rendition of some kind of foot soldier armed to the teeth for battle in some horrible future war like Mad Max meets Heavy Metal (the comic) and Blade Runner.
Since this is bid hardcore though, I’d like to bring forth a kind of interesting theory: that War and Pain was a huge influence on the guitar playing of Gavin Van Vlack (of Absolution, and later Burn). While I have never heard Gavin talk about Voivod (that I can remember) the similarities in his guitar playing, and that of Piggy, are striking, and there are several riffs on War and Pain that have direct parallels in Absolution and Burn songs. If Gavin was not listening to this record, then at the very least, it makes an interesting comparison. In fact his commonalities with Piggy’s guitar playing starts with the actual sound he uses, with the wet chorus sound being really similar to the s/t Burn 7″, which is only emphasized by the constant use of full chords and open strings (employed equally often by Gavin). Take the break down around 3:40 in Warriors On Ice. It works almost the exact same style churning riff that the famous “your ideas are WRONG…etc.” part of Burn’s “Shall Be Judged”. Similarly the ascending riff in “Suck Your Bone” (ha), has pretty noticeable similarity to the bridge in Absolution’s “A Drop Of Patience” as well as the main riff in “Fall Of A Nation”.
I’m not bringing up this stuff to disrespect or diminish the songs of Burn in Absolution in anyway. Gavin and Piggy are two guitarists I heavily admire, and I just want to point out the similarity in their technique and that both of them do really cool unexpected shit, in genres that have a reputation for being rather uniform in their approach. Anyway, this is a total killer album and there’s never been anything else quite like it.
Original pressing on Metal Blade w/ rare insert…
Metal Monday vol. 20:
You could say this is maybe a sequel to last week’s Metal Monday posting - a sealed copy of Death’s “Scream Bloody Gore” (original Combat pressing). While this doesn’t have the distinction of being the first commonly accepted death metal release, it’s a much more fully formed take on the style than the first Possessed which still has a lot more thrash-metal in it. Personally I’ve always been more of a Scream Bloody Gore man than a 7 Churches one.
Looking at the foreboding cover art for the first time, (I don’t exactly recall when), and seeing this over the top rendition of some kind of zombie temple and just knowing right then it would be the musical equivalent to a horror movie. It’s probably my favorite piece of Ed Repka art ever. Such a perfect summation of what the band is all about, and what they sounded like. When Infernal Death kicks off with the crunching intro and the first word out of Chuck Schuldiner’s throat is a lengthy “DIIIIIIIIE”, well that pretty much sums it up. The band is Death and this is Death metal.
Death Metal music is inherently powered on some kind of anti-pleasure. The riff to Death’s Zombie Ritual is like taking a sip of toxic waste or swamp water (both in ample supply in their home of Florida, Death Metal’s first home), it’s disgusting and poisonous. It’s a whole genre essentially built on that kind of aural sadism. It’s like they were working to shock themselves back to life out of the drab Reagan-ified 80’s suburban hell bands like Death, as well as fellow Floridians Obituary, Morbid Angel, and Amon came from. These bands were almost all made up of teenagers. No doubt bored, and looking at their rather bland selection of possible life paths in a world where the only things that actually made sense were the sound of a BOSS HM-1 pedal, and the plot to Evil Dead II. Chuck Schulinder and Chris Reifert were both 17 when they recorded their Mutilation demo (the 6th Death demo overall), which got them a record deal with Combat, although as this excerpt from a Reifert interview (from metal-rules dot com) shows, they weren’t exactly confident in what these guys were doing:
Combat was supposed to state on the album that Chuck and I played all the music on the album, but they ignored our request, leading to confusion for years. Also, they printed on the inner sleeve: “This album is Don Kaye’s folly”, meaning that Combat saw us as sort of a joke even though they were putting out the album. Death metal had yet to prove itself at the time and Combat were skeptical about the whole thing, I guess. I have only one copy of the vinyl left and on the inner sleeve where the Don Kaye comment is, I scratched it out and wrote ‘fuck you!’ over it with a pen.
A few years later they had to play catch-up by licensing American pressings of releases on Earache. Dummies.
METAL MONDAY VOL. 19
Possessed - Seven Churches is more or less the blueprint for how to make a death metal album, and is commonly accepted as the first full length vinyl release by a death metal band. All the key aspects are in place by 1985.
- Growled/low vocals
- opening the record with the theme from a horror movie/ambient keyboards
- fixation on Satanic themes
- ridiculous technical guitar riffing
- horrible type-writer sounding drums.
Possessed are extra cool because they are really young on Seven Churches, I think guitarist Larry LaLonde (who later got rich as a member of Primus), is like 15 or 16 on this. Their drummer certainly sounds like he’s wet behind the ears, but the rest of the band puts in an admirable performance and are setting a standard. The somewhat questionable cavernous echo that fills the record out is courtesy of producer Randy Burns who went on to record the equally influential debut by Death “Scream Bloody Gore”. Together those 2 lps defined an era, and created a starting point for thousands of hopeless youths around the globe. The kind of kids you saw sneaking cigarettes and zimas behind the grocery in your home town. They had dirt lip mustaches and had seen Phantasm and Evil Dead more times than they’d been to math class. Dirts. Skids. In 1985, this was their calling.
Here’s a sealed copy just like you would have found it in the store then.
Metal Monday vol. 18
Sodom are OLD dudes. I don’t really know how they’ve been at it for like 25-ish years making German style thrash metal, or why, but every couple years they drop another album on some Euro label. Their first E.P. “In The Sign Of Evil”has a complicated history of remixing, re-recording, etc. But here’s the original version of it on Devil’s Game records which I think is just some imprint of SPV anyway. Sodom historically were kind of influential to the image of what later became black metal (you know… that stupid collection of overpriced tapes your friend refuses to stop accumulating…) as they were an early example of a metal band taking “evil” aliases like Angel Ripper and Grave Violator, something that’s now a time honored tradition. I think they might have predated Hellhammer on this practice by a little bit, although maybe not. Truthfully this probably qualifies at most as “Black-Thrash” and isn’t anywhere close to the pure Black Metal sound Bathory was busy pioneering at the time. Regardless, it’s well rated by genre purists because of the general “savage” rasping style vocals, and the low level of technical prowess displayed on the instruments. Basically, they play like total shit, and can’t keep in time with eachother, which is both the reason for all subsequent re-recordings/remixings, and the reason why this is the only version anyone wants. Sodom eventually got decent enough at their music, to seem competent, and with Destruction and Kreator flanking them, put Germany on the map for brutal thrash metal in the 80’s. I’ve always been more of a Kreator man, but this is an entertaining listen. I prefer Sodom a tad later in their career, but they’re die-hards, and I can respect anything they do. They’ve aged better than most (Venom, etc.).
Marathon Metal Monday part II (aka Metal Tuesday) All logic dictates that Dark Angel ought to have gone into severe creative decline following Darkness Descends. Observe:
- Strike 1) Any band playing an extreme derivative of “rock” (Death/Black/Thrash Metal, Grindcore, Crust punk, etc.) without significant evolution to their sound will probably enter into a state of diminishing returns starting with their 3rd lp. This rule applies most often to bands below the first tier in their chosen genre, but often afflicts the best of them. There are ways of dodging this slump, but it’s difficult ground to tread. As Dark Angel were playing basically the same style of thrash they began with, albeit increasingly more technical, it follows that they probably were not going to improve their song craft significantly now that they were most likely spending more time distracted by road life, (more drugs, more women, long bus rides), and probably trying to take breaks from road life.
- Strike 2) Loss of key members. A loss of key members integral in shaping a band’s sound can spell disaster for obvious reasons, especially when the remaining members choose to make a new lp. Following Darkness Descends, Dark Angel had to fill not only the former guitar slot of Jim Durkin, but also the dreaded replacement vocalist position. Brett Erikson of Viking stepped up as the new guitar player, and the always bloated looking Ron Rinehart stepped into the vocal position.
- Strike 3) Playing a style that has already reached a plateau in popularity and/or general creative possibilities. It’s pretty well accepted that thrash metal was a spent force by the end of the 80’s. To loosely quote Blade Runner “The light that burns twice as bright, burns twice as fast, and you have burnt so very, very bright”. After Reign In Blood and Master Of Puppets, thrash was in a tricky bind. Generally bands tried to play even more brutal than Reign In Blood (and also Kreator’s - Pleasure To Kill), at which point you’re going to be pushing into early Death Metal territory, or more progressive and technical than the Master Of Puppets template, at which point, shit gets tedious.
As You can see the cards are stacked against Dark Angel circa the late 80’s and they’re stacked TALL. I never had any interest in hearing their 3rd lp, Leave Scars until recently when I read about how good it is on the aforementioned (yesterday) Metal Inquisition blog, but once I did, I had to hear it. So it came to pass that Leave Scars is now my favorite entry in the Dark Angel catalog. It’s the album Darkness Descends wants to be, and frankly if they could have dreamed it up sooner, the world might have had an entirely different view of Dark Angel. Gene Hoglan’s drumming is more ferocious and speedy than ever, absolutely no disrespect to Paul Bostaph (:Rodney Dangerfield voice:), but Hoglan should have taken over on the kit during the Slayer/Grip Inc. era. Thank God/Satan he’s got that cartoon network deal paying the bills.Besides the ferocity of Gene Hoglan though there are 2 things that make this album work better than the last.
- 1) Serious increase in dynamic song writing.
- 2) Moderate increase in dynamic vocal delivery.
In other words, the song-writing and vocals are stepped up a couple of notches. The songs have a huge increase in the number of tempo changes, and because of that it follows that the individual sections stand out better because they have something to contrast against. A great example of this is the epic jam “No One Answers”. You get some serious octopus styled drum action kicking things off, before going into the grooviest mosh part to date in their career. The kind of thing I don’t think the band would have taken the time for in their earlier days. A side note, the double kick in this section sounds awesome. Heavy and boomy and not typewriter-ish at all, which is because Gene Hoglan is legit and doesn’t need drum triggers. The riffing when the song takes full speed is practically at a Forced Entry/Vio-lence style level of difficulty, that is, about as technical and flashy as straight thrash metal can get. The riff-fest continues for almost 8 minutes with muscular narration by Rinehart who has a deeper delivery than Don Doty ever managed, and a more consistent one as well. Maybe the Hetfield to Doty’s Bauloff (R.I.P.). Not as wild or crazy, but with more of the necessary power and control. Leave Scars brings it all together. The speed and power of Darkness Descends, the crunch and bludgeoning mosh of the best Slayer, the technical prowess and ambition of Metallica (but with obviously much better drumming), a few brief melodic passages, everything is in place. Unfortunately, between 1986 and 1989 a few things had happened. Specifically:
- 1987) Scream Bloody Gore, Scum
- 1988) Reek Of Putrefaction, From Enslavement To Obliteration, Leporacy
- 1989) Slowly We Rot, Alters Of Madness, Left Hand Path, Symphonies of Sickness
In short, metal-heads invented Death Metal. Even if you write the heaviest Thrash album ever (and Leave Scars is a legitimate contender), it’s going to sound like Thin Lizzy up against debuts by Morbid Angel, Obituary, and Entombed. People had been talking about the rising Grind-core and Death Metal trends since John Peel started playing Carcass and Napalm Death, and ‘89 was the year it really became impossible to ignore. There just wasn’t a lot of room for a band that had always been considered second class when a whole new crop of infinitely more extreme groups had stepped into the spotlight. Oh and, in case you forgot, this is the 2nd Dark Angel lp to have horrible crappy artwork. This one has a little kid in a room full of stuffed animals with an ominous shadow cast over the room like there’s a monster coming out of the closet. The Dark Angel logo is in 3D and the room seems to be bathed in pink neon light. God this record cover sucks so much. Any hope they might have had of being noticed for an outstanding achievement must have gone down the tubes with this one.When we meet Dark Angel again the year is 1991. Things are looking BAD. Thrash is dead. Like really dead. Metallica and Megadeth are playing A.O.R. rock versions of their old sounds, Slayer now has vocals that are screamed on key, Exodus is a distant memory, Death Metal is massive, and worst of all “Grunge” is breaking (or at least about to). I’m sure there’s pressure from the record label to do something commercial, and I will say Ron Rinehart’s vocals take on a little bit of a “…And Justice For All” type Hetfield quality on Dark Angel’s final lp, “Time Does Not Heal”, but other than that, there’s no concession for any popular trends of the day in heavy music. Actually “…And Justice” is a pretty good comparison for the music on here too, because it’s just endless riffing, and endless long songs. I can’t say it’s as good as the 2 lps that precede it, but I can respect it for being wildly self indulgent and hopeless of having any commercial appeal. How self indulgent you ask? “Time Does Not Heal”is infamously known for being comprised of 246 different riffs. For a 9 song lp, that averages to a little more than 27 riffs per song. To say this is a challenging work that can only be taken on its own terms would be a cliched understatement.Commercially this album fared most likely worse than the previous ones, and again it has a terrible cover that could have only hurt sales, this time it has some C-grade model in a fuchsia turtle-neck trying to escape some kind of evil alleyway lair type thing. I can only wonder why. But horrible cover aside, I find it admirable that Dark Angel goes out with both guns blazing here, making the most complex, and over the top album they possibly could without changing their sound really, which is something few Thrash bands could lay claim to when all was said and done. I think that’s more than enough. Apologies for 2 bloated posts about a bay area thrash band, tomorrow it’s bidHARDCORE.com again. PEACE.