The Bouncing Souls - Green Ball Crew 12" EP

All the way back in 1993, a small band called The Bouncing Souls released their second EP, The Green Ball Crew EP. This was produced as 1,000 CDs that sold out within a year. Of course today The Bouncing Souls have claimed their own place in the modern Punk world, and with most bands that gain some sort of popularity, their early material becomes a sought-after commodity. The CDs pop up all over the place ever so often and sell for quite a hefty price. Thankfully, 20 years after the initial release the EP has received the final treatment! 

The EP consists of 7 tracks, that are very different to the Bouncing Souls on the album that got me into that band "How I Spend My Summer Vacation". Unsurprisingly it is musically quite similar to "The Good, The Bad and the Argyle", which again is very different to the sound the band evolved into in the late 90s. In all honesty it is far from my favourite material from the band, but then again the band was still really in its infancy.

Two versions were pressed of this record, in quantities limited to the number purchased in the month or so that sales were available through the Chunksaah website. In total, 1,000 copies were pressed (much like the CD funnily enough), with 150 on black and 850 on green. It is unusual for the coloured version to be the less limited of the two, but I guess most people would have opted for the coloured version when purchasing. I know I sure did.

The green looks fantastic too. The pictures don't actually portray what the colour actually looks like in real life. It is definitely transparent, but is closer to the colour of the sleeve than what you can see here.

The inner sleeve is quite cool for this record. Instead of being a plain paper dust sleeve, it is a combination of the insert and sleeve. One side has a particularly cool piece about the Green Ball Crew. It is a little hard to read, but you can just about make it out below. On the rear of the outer sleeve is a pretty cool photo of the crew.

Gehenna - East Coast Tour 7"

Back in 2012 The Infamous Gehenna performed an tour of the east coast of the USA, and as part of that tour released a new 7". I didn't have a hope in hell of getting one at one of the shows, but thanks to the magic of the internet I now have my very own copy. 

While this is technically a new 7", it is really more of a compilation record than a new EP. It combines the tracks from the splits with Blind to Faith and California Love onto the one record. The difference between the two sides highlight the contrast in Gehenna's work. "Get Fucked Up" is much more like their earlier material, whereas "Disciple In My Own Image" and "Lord of The Witch" from the split with BTF is the first glimpse at the more psychotropic tracks of the later Gehenna. All three tracks are just great though.

This is limited to just 125 copies, which are thankfully all hand-numbered. Mine is almost in the very middle of the lot, number 72.

The record itself is very plain; black wax with no centre labels. However, it does bear one more subtle similarity to the aforementioned splits. Interestingly the matrix etchings on either side are exactly the same as in the two splits, as if this record represents an entire duplication of those 7"s.

In case you haven't heard these tracks, here they all are thanks to the band's bandcamp page.  

Gehenna have since released an even more limited 7" that has some new tracks, "They Begged For War". This is available to stream also. If only I were able to get a copy of this too. 

Psywarfare - Candyman 7"

This is definitely one of the more mysterious and obscure pieces in my record collection. Housed in a clear red bag arrived a record straight out of 1999, well kind of. 1999 was when Psywarfare originally released the Candyman EP, but it wasn't until a surprise box of these records turned up at the HT vvebstore a few weeks ago that I was able to get my own copy.

I don't know an awful lot about this records, but from what I have been able to find out there were at least two copies of this record. There is this version with the mysterious man is glasses, which I think is the regular version, and then there is the version with the more limited blue cover (with a different face on it). For a while HT were selling a deluxe version of this which contained both versions, but as you'd expect that sold out incredibly quickly.

All four tracks are on pink vinyl, which does look surprisingly good. Each side has the same man/robot centre labels, with inverted colours. According to vinylsearcher.com (I've never heard of it until now), the pink is limited to 396 copies. I have no idea if that is true, correct me if I'm wrong..

The last interesting thing about this release relates to the red bag and inner sleeve. On the HT site the record is said to come in an embossed red bag with this accompaning picture:

However, my red bad was completely free of any such logo. Instead I have the Psywarfare logo branded on the inner sleeve. I don't know how many others are like this, but I think it is rather neat.

Zouo - The Final Agony 7"

In order to get my copy of the latest Kromosom 12", I had to search for a label called distort reality records. I'd never bought from the store before, so had a quick look to see what else they had for sale. I almost couldn't believe my eyes when I saw they had a copy of this for sale, at a very reasonable price too.

Of course it is not the original, highly sought-after AA-002 press, but the repress put out by crust war records some time last year. Even still, I consider this quite a find. At the time I tried to get my hands on a copy of this, with everywhere I tried being sold out very quickly.

For those of you that don't know, Zouo was a Japanese hardcore band in the 80s. They are somewhat similar to G.I.S.M (although better in my opinion), and originally released "The Final Agony" in 1984. This EP contained four tracks of raw Japanese hardcore goodness, which has since become somewhat of a collectors item.

As far as I know (and Discogs knows) there has been three reissues of this record since 84. The first was an unofficial copy released by Underwear On Trial in 1996. This featured different (and much crappier) artwork , white labels and scratched out matrix numbers. In 2011, crust war released the second reissue which was pressed as 2000 copies on black vinyl. The very next year Crust War re-re-issued it on red vinyl, which is the copy I have managed to get my hands on.

Although only four tracks long, it is a surprisingly long EP, totaling at just over 15 minutes. Not a second feels too long, it is truly one of the greats. Integrity has even done a cover one of the tracks, "No Power", which was featured on the "No Peace/War" compilation with RIH, VVegas, Cape of Bats and Gehenna back in 2011. The cover track also snuck it's way onto the CD version of VVorld's Plague Detonate.

The record comes housed in a fold-out poster sleeve, which I think is how the original version also came. The artwork folds out to continue the scene with the demon on the front, while the inside has a band and logo photo on one side with some rather haunting images on the other. 

I must add how impressed I am with that hair, that would surely take a lot of dedication..

Rot in Hell / Hordes split 2.0

About 18 months ago I posted about a fantastic split between Rot in Hell and Hordes. To this day it is still some of my favourite material from RIH and still gets regular rotation. I remember complaining about only getting a plain black version when a black and red copy was just as obtainable. Well, quite recently I stumbled across the opportunity to rectify that mistake with my very own black and red copy.

This also came with the original insert inside. I had somewhat forgotten about RIH's content on the lyric sheet for their cover of Integrity's classic "Kingdom Of Heaven".

Apart from the vinyl colour difference this version is exactly the same to the regular version. Did it then justify acquiring a second copy of? Of course it did, this baby is limited to just 100 copies and definitely looks way nicer than plain black. Plus the Phookas can sit and look at each other now.