Left Hand Path

In a few months I will turn 40. Not sure how you elder readers are ageing, but for me it's a very nostalgic process (speaking about my musical tastes). While I've completely lost interest for modern bands and I'm totally out of touch with the current state of the scene (and totally happy with it), over the last few years I've been gradually going back to the music I used to listen to when I was a young kid. In the early '90s I was obsessed with death metal and grindcore. Around '96 or '97 I got tired of it and moved to hardcore. While I kept all my favourite grindcore records, around 2001 I sold all my death/black metal records that I had accumulated in the previous decade. I needed money to print the first issue of my 'zine so I sold my collection to a local record shop for next to nothing. I could have made good bucks outta it since it was all first press of classics. But back then I was brainwashed by all those stupid columns against eBay that were in every zine in those days, so I went for the only other option I had. Of course all the hardcore/punk heroes of that idealistic crusade against eBay ended up selling their collections there for big bucks. Classic. Anyhow, 15 years later I've decided that it's time to rebuild that collection. I've started with an all time classic, a game changer and a genre defining album: Entombed debut album "left hand path", released by Earache in 1990.  

While they previously released 5 demos as Nihilist, they changed their monicker to Entombed (just to kick out of the band John Hedlund, ahaha) just few months before the release of their debut album "left hand path". Recorded in '89 but released only the following year, this has been unanimously considered the very first swedish death metal album ever. And by many people is revered as the best swedish record of this genre. While for me it's a tie with Dismember debut "like an ever flowing stream", I cannot praise this album enough. It's just death metal perfection. From its gloomy & dark vibe to the crushing guitar sound & perfect riffs, from the flawless balance of slow & faster parts to GL Petrov cavernous growls and Nicke Andersson superb drumming, from the incredible artwork to the classic band picture near the cross in the back cover, there's really nothing to complain about Entombed debut full length. It's so well done that the band itself hasn't been able to reproduce its greatness in their second album "clandestine" and slowly morphed into something different (but equally good in my opinion) with "wolverine blues". It's not a surprise that many bands all over the world tried to reproduce LHP sound over the last 26 year. But none went even to closer to it.

I've scored this copy easily outta eBay, but of course it wasn't as cheap as the one I bought in the early 90s. As a small revenge, I've paid it with the money I made by selling hardcore zines on eBay, ahaha. Lesson learnt. Not sure about pressing numbers but being an Earache release from early '90s, I guess we are talking about thousands of copies. There are actually two early presses, one from 1990 and one from the next year. You can easily recognize the very first one from the cool hype sticker on the upper right corner of the cover.

Crushing guitars & mass death, indeed

Here's the ticket from when I was 17 years old and saw both Napalm Death & Entombed (who were the opener of the gig!!) the for the very first time. This was when Entombed had just released "wolverine blues" but they played a good amount of tracks from the early material. Both bands were incredibly good. Good memories...

Odio Las Modas

I must admit that my knowledge about chilean music is very limited. If I have to come up with some names, Pentagram is the only band that pops up in my mind right now. Recently I've been offered a trade by my friend Ignacio from Chile. He asked if I wanted to trade a repress of an italian 80s' classic for a copy of the freshly released Anarkia "censurado" demo from 1989, now pressed for the very first time on wax by Rock SVB Discos from NY. Being a sucker for anything outta sur america, I immediately accepted his offer even without listenening to this online before closing the deal. A few weeks later this ep finally landed in my mailbox. Being a south american hardcore demo from the late 80s, I was expecting something pretty raw and primitive. To my suprise, this turned out to be very well recorded and with very well written & catchy tunes. They were well connected with the local thrash scene back then and you can definitely hear that in the music. That probably explains also why they could play their instruments so well and made such a good recording, ahahah. This is a very classic south american release that I've somehow missed until now. Highly recommended to anyone. This is true politicized punk to me: recorded during one of the most brutal & violent dictatorship ever by real people. Not a by a bunch of privileged & annoyed white kids who pretended to be some kind of revolutionaries. Pressed on a nice 3 panels sleeve with flyers, lyrics, pics and much more. I got the limited blue wax. The stamped dust sleeve is a nice extra touch that gives it some extra points. Feel free to school me on anything (metal & punk) from south america that you think I might enjoy!

Guerra De Metal

There's nothing better than seeing a uber rare record (when you know you have basically zero chances to score the original) being officially repressed. I'm talking about one of the very first metal band from Medellin that helped shaping the ultrametal medallo sound: Astaroth. Born from the ashes of Molotov around 1985, they played a few shows in their area before quickly disappear a couple of years later. During this brief period they managed to release the now super elusive "guerra de metal/ aullido sepulcral" ep, their only proper release if we don't consider their appearance (with a demo version of "guerra de metal") on the infamous Hell'zine comp. tape from 1989. There's basically no infos at all about this band and my guess is that before the internet days, they were totally unknown outside their homeland. Now colombian metal & hardcore fanatics from all over the world are paying insane price for the real deal, so I guess it was about time for an official repress. Courtesy of the newborn Epidemia Records outta France, this is a perfect reproduction of the original. Limited to 300 copies, it comes with an insert with rare pics & lyrics. Luckily the ultra cheesy satanic artwork hasn't been altered at all. I love it and it fits perfectly with the music: two perfect hymns to metal and the dark lord with the classic super raw sound and approach of the ultrametal bands. Not at all dissimilar from more well known names from the same period like Blasfemia or Parabellum. Basically, just another gem from Medellin scene. I hope more obscure colombian eps (Nemesis above all) will get the same treatment in a not so distant future!