Bouncing Souls - The Complete Control Sessions 10"

I've been a big Bouncing Souls fan for years now. In fact this band is one of the things me and my special lady first bonded over many years ago, so they're pretty special to me. Much to my disappointment, I felt the new material released on their 20th anniversary year was a bit weak. The flame that burned so brightly in their first few albums seemed to be running a bit dim these days. I guess 20 years of being together puts stress on even the best of bands.

Anyway, as I was browsing through my not-so-local Real Groovy store, I stumbled upon this 10" . To be honest I didn't even know it existed until then, but I decided it was worth giving it a shot. The sticker price was far from expensive, but thanks to their loyalty club I only had to part with a measly $5! 

On getting it home I found out this is a sort of live compilation album intended to be part of a series of different band's live material.

I had no clue about any pressing info at the time, and ended up with the plain black version. This is the most common version, after a black with gold splatter and gold with black splatter. They would have looked really flash, but this'll do me. Although it is the most common, it is still limited to just 1000 copies.

I do really like this live album, but there are two flaws. You can see both from the back cover, although they may not be overly obvious. If you look at the track listings, you can see that there are only six songs. That is clearly not enough, and i know they could have added at least a couple more from the large gap left before the centre label.
 If you take a closer look at the individual songs, you can see the second flaw. That's right, it contains a song called Hybrid Moments. You should know that that is originally a Mifits song, and yes this is a cover version. But this is not a regular cover, this is probably just about the worst cover ever. It is slow, boring and just plain awful. I know they would have been able to match the intensity of the original, so I can't see why they had to do it like this.

Gehenna / California Love split 7"

I don't know why but I've put off writing about this record for a while, but here goes. As I mentioned in the Hope Guzzo Bootleg post, as part of a deal with that record came a special version of the Gehenna / California Love split. This version contains the red cover and red vinyl, and is limited to just 300 copies ever. Musically, this is just what you'd expect from a split with the Infamous Gehenna; its full of the raw hatred that makes any Gehenna record gold. Even the California Love side is good, which is always a bonus on a split where you know nothing of the secondary band.

So yeah, this thing is red as. Of course that is good, I don't think colour matching can every be a bad thing. But for some reason it seems like the wrong colour choice for me. I don't know what it is, it's just not the colour I'm thinking about when I play these tracks. Who knows, maybe I'm crazy, it wouldn't surprise me.


Somewhat strangely, the artwork actually looks a lot clearer in the photos I've taken than in real life. Up close they are quite low resolution, so I guess this is hwy they are easier to see far away. One thing I do really like is the California Love logo, it looks as if it's written in barbed wire.

Inside the cover are the lyrics to both of the songs, with negative pictures of the artvvork. For some reason the band logos have been printed in reverse. There must be a reason why, but I don't quite see the significance of it. Down the bottom of the Gehenna side is the usual dedication to "the members of our royal bloodline". However, this release actually features some names this time; "Beau Shaver Louis Christopher Roger Colestock". I'm not sure if that is the names of three people or six, but either way i have no idea who they are...

Ancient VVisdom - A Godlike Inferno 12"

It seems that Ancient VVisdom is quite popular at the moment; my earlier post about the CD version of this album is my most viewed post yet. In that post I mentioned that the album was already released on vinyl, albeit in very low quantity. I did fail to mention that that was the test press version, and that was why only 30 were in circulation. Pretty recently Magic Bullet (The record store, not the blender thing) released the proper press on their website. They have certainly revamped the packaging from the CD version, which does it a lot more justice.

Four different colours were produced for this record, with only 500 being pressed in total. Logic would dictate that any one colour is then out of 125, but it wouldn't surprise me if that weren't the case. The four colours have quite interesting name; midnight 'gray', purple reality, THC and wasteland. All did look pretty good, but I decided to go for midnight gray. I'd have loved to get one of every colour, but that was way out of my music budget.

The photo makes the dust sleeve look the same colour as the record, which would have really been a fantastic touch. It is actually just a black one, but that works better than white on this one. 

As a great bonus, a double sided lyrics sheet was included inside the jacket. I've ended up singing these songs to myself pretty frequently since I got the CD, so I knew most of the words. It still adds to the completeness of the package well though.

There was no bonus T-shirt or anything included this time around. Not that that matters though, they really have put a solid effort into the packaging for the vinyl release of this one. Now all Ancient VVisdom needs to do is out out some more material and we'll all be happy.

Meet Integrity

Now I know this isn't following what I normally post about. But I felt this needs to be spread. It is a pity it's only a mini-doco, but it's still better than nothing.
Enjoy.

Kromosom - Demo Tape

Here we have something which I've been trying to track down for months. There have been a few copies going on Ebay, but they usually went for more than I was willing to pay for them. Then I had the chance to buy from a private seller, but I find making an offer awkward, I never know how much to offer. Anyway, this copy went up on Ebay and I won it for pretty cheap.

This is the original demo tape by Australian punk outfit Kromosom. These were released on Hardcore Victim and sold out very quickly. I can see why, this demo is fantastic. I might even go as far as saying some of the songs sound better than they do on their 8 tracks LP. Lasting just over 11 minutes, this isn't the longest release in the world, but who cares about that? 

The artwork is pretty plain here, just the band logo. That does kinda fit with the band though; no frills, just straight to the point. That is one cool looking logo anyway.

On the inside of the insert we have the lyrics. There really aren't a lot of them in this release. But that is the beauty of Kromosom, they manage to get across so much with saying so little.

The word is these guys will be releasing a new 7" on Holy Terror records pretty soon. Be sure to keep an eye out for that one.

Pale Creation - S/T 7"

This one isn't exactly new (it's almost a whole 2 years old now), but is a new pick up for me. I did already own this 7" digitally, but that is just not really enough for a release like this one is it? So along with the latest batch of A389 releases, I snuck a copy of this 7" in the order.

This EP contains two new songs from PC, and was the first thing released from the band this century. Of course both songs are fantastic, and are full of the thick atmospheric guitar and harsh vocals you've gotten to love from Twilight Haunt. 

This is truly one great looking package. The artwork on the front features six birds arranged in what I believe is the fashion of a heart. On the rear the same black and red colour scheme has been used, and depicts a scene of flowers. Perhaps this is the Rose Coloured Haze?

Inside the cover is the lyrics to both songs on the top, and some thank you's down the bottom. Even the 'mysterious' Jack Abernathy has been thanked on this one.

I really don't know why Pale Creation aren't anywhere near as popular as they should be. What illustrates this quite nicely is that almost two years after the initial release, there are still available copies of the pre-order version of this record left to buy brand new. These are limited to just 250! You would have thought these would have gone straight away. 

Don't be like me, get this record as soon as you can.