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Onslaught - Power From Hell is in some ways pretty advanced for 1985. This is the foundation that a lot of later Crust Metal and Death Metal were built upon. Released on Pusmort/Children of the Revolution originally, Power From Hell takes  a relatively extreme crossover style up for its time. There’s a good deal of COC, Discharge, and GBH in the mix here, but with heavy doses of Venom, early Slayer, Bathory, and Sodom. Onslaught were a UK band, and their influence on subsequent groups from the country, like Bolt Thrower, Hell Bastard, and Axegrinder is plainly evident, although the lyrical content, which is mainly of the demons/Satan/evil/Hell variety is totally different. I guess the main thing is that Onslaught were a little more ragged than your average Deathrash band of the day. Harder vocals, more chugging mosh riffs, and still a discernible musical connection to punk.

Of course a big reason this was snatched up by punk rockers is that it was on a punk label and had the Pushead endorsement which might have been a little more worthwhile before he was doing Cocobat CDs and weird action figures. I’d imagine for some people who picked this up, it was the first time they heard real down and dirty underground metal, and thus served as an adequate point of entry. Actually it’s worth mentioning that a lot of songs just rip off Venom and then add some chugging skank riffs to pad things out. Take for instance “DEATH METAL” not to be confused with Possessed’s song of the same name, and having very little in common sonically with the genre that subsequently took the same name. This one is basically a retread of Venom’s “Black Metal” (also very unlike what we call Black Metal now), right down to the the speed-rockin’ verse, and the ascending chorus with the repeated shouting of the song title. The reality of it is that early Venom really is only a degree or two off the first couple GBH lps anyway, which really must have primed this for punk consumption.

As you may have noticed this is a pressing on green vinyl out of an unknown number (probably a few hundred) and that combined with the Pushead label makes it fairly desirable.

…oh and 1 day left on these: http://search.ebay.com/_W0QQsassZtrem_two

Pushead had his fingers in the global hardcore scene from the get-go, and so it’s pretty logical that he released one of the earlier compilations that does a pretty good job of covering several different areas of the earth. This comp - Cleanse The Bacteria - in addition to that though, also has pretty much the limits of extremity covered for hardcore in that era. Power hits from the likes of Mob 47, Inferno, Civil Dissident, Corrosion Of Conformity, The Execute, and Pushead’s own band Septic Death. There’s also some 7 Seconds songs that are pretty good, but not extreme in any way.  Oh and there’s a little band I happen to live very much by the name of Siege making their only vinyl appearance ever (excluding numerous reissues of their demo). The Siege songs on here are ragged, blasting proto-grindcore insanity. Probably the best music I know of to come from Boston in 1985 without any doubt. For the inclusion of that material I consider this comp particularly indispensable. The Pusman was one of the few who actually got how earth shaking what Siege was doing was - and the tracks actually sound best on the actual comp as opposed to numerous reissues where they’re EQ’d to sound more seamless with Siege’s demo tracks. Aside from my personal bias, and interests, just take a look at this tracklist:

Side 1.
7 Seconds: Regress No Way, We’re Gonna Fight
Civil Dissident: 20th Century Holocaust Pt. II, Death for a Buzz
Instigators: 53rd State, The Blood is on Your Hands, Free(You’re Not)
Siege: Sad But True, Cold War, Walls
Corrosion of Conformity: Kiss of Death
Crude SS: Nazi Go home, Sprang Alla Komunhus
Akutt Innleggelse: Tenk Na!
The Execute: Slash(Live)

Side 2.
Part 1: Black Mass
Poison Idea: Typical, Die on your Knees
Genocide Express: Genocide Express, Factory
Inferno: Wir Sind Schon Tot, Freited
Mob 47: Fred & Rattuisa, Sjuk Varid, Nedrusta Nu, Snuten Styr
Septic Death: Terrorain, Change
Enola Gay: Grav Et Kul, Enola Gay
Holy Dolls: Beast of the Apocalypse
Zyklome A: People Die, Angry Face
Extrem: Nazi Raus

Anyway this copy is a blue vinyl edition which is relatively hard to come by. There’s also some on orange vinyl that include a poster and a bonus 12″ of out takes - good luck grabbing that. I’m not gonna break this down track by track, but pretty much every band that’s not Part1 (ugh) brings something good to the table.

I like COC for a lot of reasons. One is that they have one of the all time coolest skull logos. But probably the number one reason is the Animosity lp. It’s kind of Crossover, but it’s still mostly Hardcore, and has been a standard in my rotation for years. It’s not your usual Crossover fair though, as the metal it crosses itself with seems to be more of the ominous doomy variety than your typical Metallica/Megadeth aping found on most “going metal” records of the 80s.

Side A opens with Loss For Words which begins with a roll across some roto-toms and a quick succession of palm muted 16th notes, immediately telling the listener this will be a progression from previous COC records. After some effective start-stop-start thrashing, the band drop into a heavy mosh riff that sounds like something Suicidal might have written if they were a better band. It’s got the same party-mosh beat that Suicide’s An Alternative cultivated, but with a much more menacing atmosphere and a deeper groove.  COC doesn’t sound like speed freaks, they sound like pot-heads, and that’s meant to be a compliment. If there’s any doubt in your mind just wait til they shift down to first gear again to Sabbath type sludge, and a gloriously loose atonal solo, that sounds like the 2nd cousin of a classic Greg Ginn run. If there’s such a thing as Stoner-Thrash, this has to be it. Mike Dean’s vocals howl and growl their way into paranoid, angry oblivion with worlds more expression than previous “singers”, Eric Eycke and Benji Shelton, sounding absolutely sinister and disturbed. If more crossover bands had been able to display the kind of versatility that COC does just in the first 5 minutes of Animosity, maybe  it wouldn’t have died such a quick death as a subgenre.Next up is Mad World, a reworking of a song originally on the No Core comp with a more rocked out delivery, and more manic vocals. Guitar player Woody Weatherman (great name!) tears a wild solo sure to make the likes of Bubba Dupree proud (or jealous) and Reed Mullin keeps the pace under control playing a little behind the beat for a more savage feel. Side note: I called Reed’s parents house from the number listed in the No Core comp, and while he was not available at the time, his mom was really nice. Consumed is track 3 and it opens with a heavy call response section between the bass and guitar before taking off with the main riff. Holier and Positive Outlook move things along well with some good gang back-up portions, and mind-melting riffs-a-plenty.

Side B of the album is in some ways an entirely different beast. Specifically, it’s from a very different sounding recording session, and while both sides have a heavy sound, Side-B is much more raw. The drums and vocals particularly have a lot of added distortion, the vocals even sound like they were probably sung through a distortion pedal. It’s sort of crazy to think that think that a record released on Enigma/Death records in 1985, that was trying to appeal to a wider audience would have had this sound for the b-side, but there it is. Things open with the album highlight “Prayer” which has Dean at his most demonic sounding, and one of the most menacing breakdowns ever with Dean and some backup shouters repeating the line: “Pray, pray, pray for power” against a riff half way between Pentagram and Discharge. The next song, “Intervention”, starts with some unaccompanied growls and rasps, sounding like someone spitting blood up, and then enters into a circular noodling bassline which eventually gives way to the full band. Most of the songs on this side sound like they were probably written before the songs on the A-side as they are a little bit simpler, and dirtier in their presentation. It makes me wonder if there might be an entire lp’s worth of tunes from this session. Kiss Of Death and Hungry Child flesh out this distort-o nightmare version of COC, and definitely cement Animosity, Side-B, as their most crazy sounding material. The album closes with an instrumental title track, a heavy dirging jam on a couple of sludgy endless riffs. It’s a good way to finish things out.

Reviews from the time tend to complain about the more metallic and “heavy” elements that COC introduced on this album, and I’m sure there are some purists today who still feel their best work is their first lp, Eye For An Eye. Looking retrospectively at their career and where this album fit into the larger hardcore and metal landscapes though, I’m fairly certain that this is their best work, and their most original work. Eye For An Eye is a good hardcore album, but Animosity is just a great album. You could call it hardcore or cross over, or maybe even metal, but I just know it’s extremely ferocious and brutalizing.By the way an added bonus to this album is that it features early Pushead art from before he’d developed his, at this point, extremely tired, dotted skulls+ swirly backgrounds aesthetic. Instead you get an angry bearded man, and some torn up pages from a calander? Hey, I just know it looks cool.

Corrosion of Conformity - Animosity LP.

Absolute clearing house for 90’s stuff here - the good, bad, ugly, and weird. You might want to take notice of this Cavity “Crawling” b/w “Perseverance” 7″ on Bacteria Sour. This one has a cool vellum cover, is on some colored vinyl, and is probably hand numbered and issued in some miniscule quantity. Cavity were a premier band in a somewhat extinct 90’s sub genre, 90’s Southern Sludge Metal(core). Maybe it’s not actually extinct, but it’s at least removed from hardcore more now. At one time this was an important part of any burrito punk’s diet, now, I’m not quite sure. I think it’s not quite as “in”, which is why you don’t really see anyone wearing Damad shirts anymore. Cavity were more or less a baby Eyehategod on their earliest releases like this one. Later on they got a little more rocked out and were less of a straight oozing sludge vibe, which would probably seem more annoying if a band today did it. You could tell they were originally involved in hardcore, mainly in how angry they sounded, the vocals are strangled and pushed to the max all the time, the music is more about being hard than catchy; straight-up Doom Metalers would just sound more stoned and not quite as aggro.

A classic way to start this kind of record is with a really quiet looped sound effect that’s kind of high pitched and abstract, then after like 30 seconds you kick into the lowest possible note (depending on tuning), with the drummer hitting extremely hard, and probably the vocalist doing a good ARRRGH. I can’t remember how Crawling starts but I bet it’s like that. Cavity had a few jams that took off like that. Another thing you had to be good at to play this style was feeding back. You want maximum feedback between every pause in every song and Cavity really had this in spades. Actually they were able to use it more effectively than most of their peers in my opinion because it seems at no point did they try and reel it in, even a little bit.

Anyway… Cavity, a Sludge Metal(core) favorite. Oh also that Hacksaw 7″ is worth your time if you’re a Swiz maniac.

Still kind of rolling with the 90’s here, at least for a minute… A message board I post on ended up having a huge thread of “cool HC from the 90’s” kinda focusing on forgotten/hard to get releases and at some point it just degenerated into anything decent that doesn’t get a lot of face time nowadays. Eventually conversation turned to Devoid of Faith, which had me busting a bunch of their stuff out of my collection over the past couple days. Pretty much every DOF record is good, and with the exception of one split, they can all be had for like $2-$7. It’s actually kind of surprising how little interest in them there is right now, and I hope at some point the interest returns because revisiting has been a treat. I guess if you mixed up some classic New York stuff like Citizen’s Arrest, Agnostic Front (V.I.P. era), Life’s Blood, Born Against (1st 7″), Trip 6, and Nausea (demo era), you’d start to get an idea where they were coming from (although DOF was from Albany NY not NYC) — just pounding stuff with good tempo changes.

There are two particularly collectible records by Devoid of Faith, both issued on Pushead’s Bacteria Sour Label in the 90s. This is one of them, a 10″ album called Purpose: Lost, issued in a number of only 222 copies. It has since been repressed on a different label with alternate artwork but this version is still desirable to some collectors, and one of the best recordings by the band. If you’ve never heard them I suggest checking out their songs from the split with 9 Shocks Terror, the repress of this 10″, their earlier self titled lp issue as a 10″ and 12″, the Slow Motion Enslavement 7″, or the Denial By Machinery 7″. All of these are first rate and pressed in large quantities making them easy to find cheaply.

So besides a couple more less interesting 90’s releases, this seller also has a good smattering of 80’s classics, that are already canonized into the hall of fame. A clipped corner copy of This Is Boston Not L.A. which you might be able to obtain for cheap, a Pusmort pressing of Poison Idea’s Kings Of Punk (it’s missing the sticker and poster though FYI), Finnish standard: Rattus “WC Rajhtaa” 12″(with Pushead art on the sleeve, making this the most Pus-heavy post ever), basically everything here is worth your interest. The Crude SS - Who’ll Survive 7″is a serious jam right up in the upper echelon of Swedish classics, and also one of the first from there to get heavy exposure in the USA, and before you ask “how?”, just re-read this post again and look for a reoccurring name: Pushead. Well at least in part anyway, due to his inclusion of Crude SS on his Cleanse the Bacteria compilation.

Now this is nice. Just some classic 80’s hardcore. Only 5 auctions here, one of which is a great lot containing no less than the following:

• Murphy’s Law “Back With A Bong” (still the best/funniest punk album title ever)
• Teen Idles/SOA/Youth Brigade/GI’s - 4 7″s on a 12″
• V/A - It Came From Slimey Valley
• Minor Threat - 1st 2 7″s collection
• V/A - Cleanse The Bacteria
• Verbal Assault - Learn
• Meatmen - We’re The Meatmen and You Suck
• Circle Jerks - Group Sex
• Suicidal Tendencies - s/t
• Dayglo Abortions - Feed Us A Fetus & Here Today Guano Tomorrow

Pretty much all original, if not first pressings. I’m not really sure why this dude wouldn’t wanna sell all those seperately but whatever, it could mean a good deal for you the buyer (reader).

Besides that there’s also auctions for these single lps: MDC - Millions Of Dead Cops (og. with white border), Christ On Parade - Sounds Of Nature (og. on Pusmort), AOD - Wacky Hijinks, Raw Power - Screams From The Gutter (og. on Toxic Shock). Personally I would say 3 of those are greatest of all time status, with MDC being an over-rated embarassing slab of white guilt, moronic political slogans, and generally uninventive song writing. Yea. I went there. Definitely for my money one of the worst “classic” hardcore records. I’m sure some old timer who saw them at Jack’s Crab Shack in nowheresville in ‘83 had a really powerful experience, but thousands of people go to NASCAR events frequently. Just because they’re having a good time, doesn’t mean I don’t feel like I’m watching cars drive in a circle, which is more or less what listening to MDC is like for me. True story. It doesn’t matter when you hear Silvio belt out the “RAWWWWWWWWW POWWWWAHHHH” yell on Screams From The Gutter.

Generally most ebayers are unloading at least 50% percent junk. Unwanted split 7″s w/ Napalm Rod Stewart 3000, 6 volumes of common KBD comps, those tour shirts that everybody else bought and wears to every show… not so w/ Seller: fisheggr from the country of Japan. You’re only going to find this dude selling 5 items but each one could be displayed in a hardcore museum (Jesse Standhard’s record museum R.I.P.). Here’s a breakdown of what I’m talking about, in the form of a list:

1. State Of Alert - No Policy E.P. This is looking like a 3rd press copy to me. The photo is small but I think I can see the Black Flag bars that were added to Henry’s arm for this pressing on the front cover (notice that tiny black dot that would probably look like The Bars at full size). At 16 this seemed like the hardest thing I had ever heard, which prior to that was probably either Pantera or Pro-Pain, but this was a different kind of hard. As a side-note, I heard that when Government Issue first made it to Detroit they played with Negative Approach, and John Brannon and some of the local dogs did a band called SOA-Mania which was just an SOA cover band (ala Beatle-Mania duh). John Stabb reportedly said they were better than the real SOA.
2. Youth Of Today - Break Down The Walls (Wishingwell Pressing). This is the most common item on the list here, but it’s becoming more and more scarce with the passage of time. I now sometimes see these selling for around $50 which a few years ago was pretty unheard of. This is definitely the best mix/mastering job on a poorly recorded, overproduced, and nonetheless start to finish CLASSIC lp. The drums are not nearly as FX-laden, the snare actually sounding like a snare, and some of the chintzy reverb that is heard on later pressings isn’t yet present giving the guitars a little more buzz.
3. Unicef - 1st EP.I can’t lie. I had to ask what this one was. My knowledge of Finnish hardcore is pretty lacking but my understanding is this is 1st teir, “top-want” type stuff. The thing to note here is the opening bid is $200, meanign it will probably only get 1 or 2 bids overall. $200 is slightly lower than going rate, which in effect could lead to someone getting a better than average deal. Keep an eye out.
4. Septic Death - Need So Much Attention (Pusmort Pressing). I think that’s the title of this one. Anyhow this is the original version without the added tracks, and revised art. Septic Death being one of the most confusing discographies to get a grip on, I’ll post a beginner’s guide sometime in the future, as ‘ol Pus has a tendency to just constantly reissue the same songs under different record titles.
5. Terveet Kadet - Message 12″ (Test Press). More specifically this is a release that only made it to the test press stage as a 12″. Meaning there were 20 made, and I don’t know how many are accounted for. This is true collector-scum bait. The kind of thing you could con the right someone to jump off the empire state building for.