i have to admit that i have never really been into those hardcore-punk bands like pennywise, ignite or exactly h2o. i couldn't really get involved with their sunny california sound. even though i saw the first two mentioned bands playing live several times on different occasions and their shows were always cool. to me there are bands that totally convince me playing live but fail to do so when i listen to their records. walls of jericho for example are one of my favourite live bands but i don't really like their recorded stuff. pennywise and ignite fall into the same category and i thought h2o was no exception.
i managed to elude a h2o show since last year where i saw them for the first time together with madball and first blood. they were the direct support for the headliner madball and madball had a hard time to keep the crowd going after h2o's performance. to me h2o was the band of the night and i said to myself that i should check them out more appropriate then i did in the past. it took me almost another year. after i saw them again with agnostic front and hatebreed and after they were a blast again i gave myself a symbolic kick in the ass and bought this record at my next burnout store visit.
i love this record! love the messages, the straight edge background and the ear worm melodies. the album is from 2008 and bridge9 did it's fourth pressing recently. i really like opaque colours with some marble effects. looks nice! tan coloured vinyl out of 1000 with download code. bridge9 records. 2008.
hardside - time is punishment
i heard some tunes of hardside recently because the label of my trust, demons run amok entertainment, released a compilation of hardside's first two 7"es on 12" format which i have to get in the near future. i wasn't hooked immediately, so i didn't pre-order it. then in december last year jake posted about his copy of 'time is punishment' and so i was aware of the fact that hardside had even an album out. but what to do with the knowledge? nothing - until mid february (yes, that's how long i'm behind with posting). flicking through the h-section at burnout and after picking h2o another familiar looking cover caught my interest.
i dragged the record to the next free turntable and gave it a spin. i listened to the first song and after half of it through i said 'yepp, bought!' i didn't even make it to the chorus because excitement took over. back home i listened to it in whole and was surprised at the chorus parts sung with a clear voice. i wasn't really sure of it but after the second listen i couldn't get these refrains out of my head. brilliant heavy mid-tempo hardcore with really catchy refrains sung by some kind of heavy metal voice. makes them unique in my eyes and that's rare!
the record was released by 6131 records. according to the 6131 shop two colour ways were made: grey marble and solid green. the solid green is slightly marbled too. i presume that grey marble is the more limited because it stands on top of the solid green option in the shop but i can't be sure as 6131 records didn't post any numbers yet. comes with download code.
6131 records. 2012.
