Smashing Pumpkins - Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness

One of the greatest albums of all time has finally been re-issued on vinyl!

Billy Corgan is a busy man these days... Not only is he, as Smashing Pumpkins, releasing his 44 song project "Teargarden By Kaleidoscope", he has also released Smashing Pumpkins' best album in 14 years this year, "Oceania", but he is also re-releasing the back-catalog. Both "Gish" and "Siamese Dreams" has seen really cool releases and now it's time for the band's masterpiece, "Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness".

The album is spread out over four vinyls, each housed in a separate sleeve. The box set is completed with two books. One book includes all the lyrics and the other one includes a forword and a very interesting track by track commentary by Billy Corgan on every song on the album, extremely pleasant reading!

Like I said, this is one of my favourite albums ever and this release just makes it even better!

Converge - All We Love We Leave Behind is finally here

Now this little piece of paper, I've been waiting to receive for a very long time! It's an "avi" from the post office, to get my copies of the Converge record All We Love We Leave Behind. I pre-ordered it sometime in August, if I'm not mistaking, and it had a release date early October. 

However the vinyls have been delayed. From what I can understand the Converge records were next in line to be printed after the Beatles vinyls that was released in November and this took more time than expected or something... Strange that The Beatles are prioritized over Converge, huh?

Anyways, tomorrow I'll go to the post office to trade it in, so that I'll finally hold in my hand, the vinyl record containing probably the best collection of music released this year!

Expect a post tomorrow!

My Nasum collection pt. 1.

I've mentioned a couple of times, my Nasum collection. It is the band that I had most intensely collected, to the point that I have a near complete vinyl collection. I still miss a few CDs and such but they are often quite cheap so I'll probably get them as well.

So, in a few posts I'll present to you my collection of the Swedish grindcore band Nasum.

Nasum started 20 years ago, but was forced to call it quits in 2004/2005 as the singer/guitarist/one of the main songwriters Mieszko Talarczyk tragically was one of the many casualties in the tsunami disaster.

They came back this year for a farewell tou which took them around the world and ending in a magical night in Stockholm in October.

Anyways, here's my collection:
I'll start with the 7" singles and EPs:


From top left:
Blind World (Poserslaughter Records) 
split with Agathocles and the first ever release of Nasum.

Smile When You're Dead (Ax/ction Records)
Split with Psycho.

World In Turmoil (Blurred Records)
The first EP without founding member Rickard Alriksson and this is where they started to find "their" sound. One of the coolest releases for me.

The Black Illusions (Yellow Dog Records)
Split with Abstain. Contains the song "No Paradise For The Damned", that was later re-recorded for their last studio album "Shift".

The Nasum Campaign (Relapse Records)
A split with Warhate. A part of Relapse's singles serie. It was released in three different colours, white, black and (as always with Relapse releases) transparent (in 100 copies). This EP contains one of my favourite songs "Losing Faith", it shows the strength and brilliance of Nasum in just 36 seconds!

Untitled (Black Mask Collective/Busted Head Records/Putrid Filth Conspiracy)
Split with Asterisk. This as well contains some of my favourite Nasum tracks. "Krossa" and "Falska Tankar" are both brilliant songs and stand out even when they are featured in the compilation "Grind Finale".

The Bloodbath Is Coming (Sound Of Betrayal)
Nasum had one song on this 2X7" compilation called "A Bloodbath Displayed".

Untitled (No Tolerance Records)
Split with Skitsystem. This was one of the last non-album releases Nasum did. It was limited and numbered to 1 100 copies.



The record in the bottom right corner is a test press of the Skitsystem-split. I got this one directly from the record company that released the split. There was only five copies of this printed.

Sleep - Dopesmoker

Apparently I forgot to post this blog that I wrote a couple of weeks back...

Finally one of the cornerstones in stoner rock/metal has seen a great re-release. It's of course Sleep's "Dopesmoker" I'm talking about.

It has been released under the name "Jerusalem" earlier as well, and then it was divided into six songs, where it's actually just one. One track spanning over 60 minutes, that's just incredible and nothing for the weak minded.

Led Zeppelin - Celebration Day.

This is the documentation of probably the biggest one-off concert in the history of music, the re-union gig of Led Zeppelin.

You probably all know the story. To get hold of one of the 18 000 tickets to this concert you had to enter a "lottery" to be able to win the opportunity to buy tickets to this concert. Rumour has it that there were two million participants...

I was living and studying in High Wycombe, England, at the time and one night I almost fell of my chair opening my e-mail inbox seeing as I've got the e-mail I never thought I would get, congratulating me on winning the opportunity two buy two tickets. I had to read the e-mail through several times before I could actually believe.

Said and done, tickets bought and on the 10th of December 2007 me and my friend Daniel was witness to my, without a doubt, biggest musical experience of my life (I have a hard time anything will ever come close). The guys really delivered the goods.

Five years later the concert has been released on various formats. I've gotten the Blu-ray version, with a bonus DVD and the concert on a double CD. The vinyl will be released in January apparently. Hopefully it will get the same nice treatment as "Mothership" and the re-release of "The Songs Remains The Same" has gotten.

Iron Maiden - Picture disc box set, pt. 2.

I wrote about the picture disc project of Iron Maiden in a previous blog. They will release the eight first releases starting with the self titled debut album and finish with the 1988 album "Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son".

This month they released "The Number Of The Beast" and "Piece Of Mind". Two major milestones in the heavy metal genre (as are all of the seven (eight if you count "Live After Death", which is featured in this box set) first Maiden albums I guess). TNOTB features some of the best-known metal songs ever ("Run To The Hills" and the title track), and POM features some of Maiden's best work, in my opinion ("The Trooper", "Still Life", "Quest For Fire" etc.).

Essential in any collection!

Now we have to wait until January for the next two records...

The gift of music.

Today is Father's day here in Scandinavia. I'm visiting my parents this weekend so I have the opportunity to celebrate it with my dad. My dad who is probably responsible for my big interest in music.

For Father's day I got him the new Aerosmith album. He's been a fan since the 70s and he had every album on vinyl up until Permanent Vacation and he has the ones after that one on CD. So it was time to get albums on vinyl again.

The gift was much appreciated!