Entry the 19th: Earth Crisis - The Oath That Keeps Me Free

The first Earth Crisis album released after I had started listening to them was a live album. Some kind of benefit for a family member or something. I had been almost unbearably excited for this to be released, and was only a little disappointed that it wasn't a new studio album. There were a couple of new songs though, which was enough to tide me over until a proper album was released later on.

I don't listen to this much these days. The two songs that were new on this album never appeared elsewhere which is cool, but the songs are also not exactly the most crucial Earth Crisis songs out there. Still, it's a pretty good album to put on when I'm feeling nostalgic for the live ExC experience.

Check out: Smash Or Be Smashed

Entry the 18th: Malefaction - Smothered

My first album by a Canadian (and local) act, this is an album that I didn't get until early 1998, but I had already been familiar with for a couple of years. I'd had it in my possession having borrowed it along with Propagandhi's Less Talk More Rock from my friend Richard, and tape of it came along with me on a road trip to BC a year and a half before, so Smothered and I were already good pals.

Listening to it now for some reason takes me back to a day when I saw Titanic at Portage Place, which is kind of a weird association for my brain to make, but I guess it was the right time period. It's now my least favorite Malefaction recording, but still pretty enjoyable, even if it lacks the bite of their later grindier work.

Check out: Remains

Entry the 17th: Refused - Songs To Fan The Flames Of Discontent

My first foray outside of the USA was into Sweden via hardcore band Refused. I had been missing out! I'd learned about them through the second Victory Style compilation with the song It's Not OK... I remember the day I bought this album at The Cellar with my friend Joe, and listening to it for the first time at home, the intro to Rather Be Dead being so exciting, and then the song itself being so fast but also nice and heavy at the same time.

I still love this band, although this isn't my favorite of their albums. It seems so much smarter than so many of these early selections of mine. Not necessarily in the lyrics, as I think they're just as naive as any other, but in the songwriting. Not so heavy a reliance on breakdowns or singalongs.

Check out: Rather Be Dead

Entry the 16th: Strife - One Truth

Strife's first full length, One Truth, was a fine record, but unfortunately it suffered from not being In This Defiance. Too bad for this record, because it really was pretty good, and if I had gotten it before In This Defiance I would have listened to it a lot. Alas this was not the case, and so whenever I felt like listening to Strife, it was rare that this found its way to my CD player.

I still feel this way about One Truth but I think that might not be entirely fair. If this record had the same production as its successor then I might be singing a different Strife tune. Some of the songs on In This Defiance were older songs, and they are probably my favorites, so what if?

Check out: Arms of the Few

Entry the 15th: Judge - Bringin' It Down

Another addition inspired by the Jocelyn Tape, this time the song was New York Crew. Fast and angry, with lots of gang vocals, this seems like the sort of thing that I would have been all over. There was something about it though that just kept it from being one of my favorites. So many of the other records I had were already filling the roles that this one might have, and while that didn't keep it out of the player, or keep the songs off of my own tapes, it never really got the kind of play that those other records did. That and when it came down to Boston vs. New York, at least in my collection, Slapshot won hands down in my mind.

Now listening to Mike Ferraro's lyrics I just laugh at the guy. The tough guy stuff doesn't appeal any more, and listening to a fat guy sing about a fight he got into once with some guys from Boston or how they wore construction gloves? What a loser. That being said, I still like this as long as I don't listen to the words too carefully, or remember that there are better hardcore bands near at hand.

Check out: New York Crew

Entry the 14th: Strife - In This Defiance

We come to Christmas 1997 with this entry, back when my family wasn't too fed up trying to find me records I like. Strife was one of the bands from Victory Style that I actually really liked, and it took me nearly a year to pick something up by them. Well Merry Christmas to me, this ended up being one of my favorite albums then.

This is good stuff, as I'm currently on my fourth listen. This is one of those albums where each song that comes on I think it's my favorite. With most of them I'm wrong, since my favorite is Force Of Change, but it's a close race. I suspect that I'd not be alone in that choice either.

Check out: Force Of Change

Entry the 13th: Earth Crisis - Firestorm

Here is what really started it all for me. The song that first truly piqued my interest and directed me down the road to the realm of aggressive music was Firestorm. Long before picking up the actual Firestorm EP I had the song, coupled as it was with Forged In The Flames, on the Victory Style compilation. Those two songs make up half of this EP, the other half being Unseen Holocaust and Eden's Demise. Unseen Holocaust was really the only other good song on here, and that is why it took me so long to get the real thing.

I rarely listen to this nowadays, but in spite of that fact, the song Firestorm is still probably my most listened to song of all time. For anyone who had actually heard this song, that might sound a little strange. It's a pretty dull song by any standards but whatever standards I had when I was fifteen. I still love this though, and I consider the first time I heard this song as one of the most important milestones of my life to date. It was that big a deal.

Check out: Firestorm/Forged In The Flames

Entry the 12th: Integrity - Seasons In The Size Of Days

More Integrity! I was hard pressed to decide whether I liked this better than Humanity Is The Devil but who cares? Dark and menacing hardcore, with all kinds of heretical imagery? Yes please. This was also perfect listening for the time of year I got it, late in the year as the days were fast approaching their darkest, and everything around was bleak and grey. Two years later I named my cat after singer Dwid.

Today it's not so bleak out there, but you wouldn't know it from the sounds coming from my speakers. A song about sarin nerve gas is delightful, and Millennial Reign almost sounds like something that Deathspell Omega would put out today. Integrity was and remains one of my favorite hardcore bands, or rather favorite bands in any genre.

Check out: Millennial Reign

Entry the 11th: Sick Of It All - Live In A World Full of Hate

Sometime in the fall of 1997, I picked up this album at The Cellar. I don't think I knew it was a live album when I bought it, but the disappointment didn't last because it turned out that this was exciting to listen to in the same way as The California Takeover. In particular the opening barrage of Injustice System, It's Clobberin' Time, and Violent Generation all without pause gave the impression of an extremely intense live show. I'd still never been to a hardcore show, or really any concert for that matter, so this was still as close as I could get to the action.

It's still fun to listen to, but since I've been to countless shows at this point it's not the same as it was then. Still, I'd go see them if they turned up in Toronto, and since they're still around, you never know.

Check out: Injustice System

Entry the 10th: Path of Resistence - Who Dares... Wins

Take Earth Crisis, and add a couple of singers, make it a little simpler and faster, and make all the songs about straightedge stuff and you have this spinoff project. I loved this to be sure. It had all the militancy and rage of Earth Crisis, but it was faster and more aggressive, and the cover with mysterious straightedge goons all over it was very appealing.

Four years ago, these guys re-formed and released a second album, and listening to this now, I don't know why I didn't pick it up. This rules!

Check out: Broken Heroes

Entry the 9th: One King Down: Bloodlust Revenge

More vegan straightedge metallic hardcore. More Hate Than Fear was another Jocelyn Tape hit, and it could be found on this One King Down EP. Unfortunately, the tracks on my iPod for this are corrupt, so sadly I wasn't able to listen to it properly, but a little poking around the internet allowed me to sample some of it here and there.

This was the closest thing to Earth Crisis that I had found up to this point. The lyrics were similarly eloquent, and certainly on the same subject matter, and the music was that same sort of no-frills, slowed down Slayer/Metallica riffs. They were probably my second favorite band, at least for a bit.

Listening to this again today, it doesn't have the staying power that most of these previous records have had. I rarely ever listen to this as evidenced by the fact that I only just discovered that the songs don't actually play on my iPod.

Entry the 8th: Slapshot - 16 Valve Hate

On the Jocelyn Tape there was also a song called Big Mouth Strikes Again, which I found on this album by Boston's Slapshot. The rest of this album sounded very different from the song that inspired its acquisition, and for a very good reason. Big Mouth Strikes Again is actually by The Smiths. Who knew? In any case, I loved this fast, pissed-off hardcore. Their straightedge hollering wasn't really militant like that of Earth Crisis. It was perhaps more honest in a sense. Just straight ahead angry.

Nowadays, this still gets some love. I don't feel like I can relate to the anger any more, but back then I didn't realize they were covering The Smiths, so I'm guessing they might have been a little less angry than I realized. Front to back this is a great hardcore album.

Check out: Big Mouth Strikes Again

Entry the 7th: Sick Of It All: Scratch the Surface

Some time previous to getting this record, my good friend Jocelyn made me a mix tape. I believe it was about 90 minutes long and filled with a bunch of hardcore bands. I listened to the tape a lot along with these records and tapes I had made for myself, and I liked some of the bands enough to buy their records too.

So I finally got something that wasn't on Victory Records, and I finally got something that was really actually more like hardcore than metal, a distinction I was less aware of at the time. Just before my Grade 10 school year I picked this up, again at the Music City in Polo Park.

The song Step Down was the on the tape Joce made me, and in listening to it again I still quite like it. I actually like a lot of the other songs quite a bit more than I remember liking them at the time. Lou Koller still sounds a little like he's retarded, like so many other hardcore singers, but that's not a complaint, and I still remember most of the words that he sings in that garbley tard-yell.

Check out: Step Down

Entry the 6th: Integrity - Humanity Is The Devil

I bought this the same day as "Gomorrah's Season Ends" at the Music City in Polo Park. It probably would have been June-ish 1997. Another album that I was led to by the Victory Style compilation, this would be the first album I ever got that made me feel a little uneasy. I didn't really know what to make of all the Process Church stuff, but I'm glad the internet was useless back then because this album would have lost all of its mystique.

Integrity is probably the only band that I was listening to in the infancy of my music-geekdom that didn't disappoint me within a year or two. They still haven't disappointed. This band, and this EP remain favorites to this day. "Vocal Test" is a great party-starter.

Check out: Abraxas Annihilation

Entry the 5th: Earth Crisis - Gomorrah's Season Ends

Yet another album by Earth Crisis. This one I had also already been listening to for months on a dub of a dub. The tape said "Earth Crisis" but this sounded pretty different from what I was used to from them. Way harsher vocals, and more dissonant sounding. So getting this album finally confirmed for me that I had indeed been listening to my favorite band. My favorite they remained, and even though I think I preferred "Destroy the Machines" this album got tons of mileage as it was perfect for the peevish teenager that I was. I was pissed about lots of things, but mostly my dad's drinking, and listening to this helped me through a lot of the difficulties related to that.

Listening to this today, I feel much the same way about it as I do "Destroy the Machines". I still love it, but it doesn't have quite the same effect as it once did, since I don't relate that well to the lyrics anymore. It also still makes it's way into the rotation once in a while too, so there are no surprises here either.

Check out: Broken Foundation

Entry The 4th: The California Takeover

It's probably readily apparent at this point that I didn't really know where to look for anything except in the Victory Records catalogue, or that I was only listening to a few bands. I was still listening to that Victory Style comp, mostly for Firestorm, but also for the lovely sounds of Integrity, Strife, Snapcase, and Deadguy. Enter The California Takeover, my first live record.

Even though live versions of Ecocide and Firestorm were on here, there's not much that makes me play this record these days. The best Strife track, The Essence, isn't even a Strife song, nor is it sung by Strife's singer, and there's not much else to get excited about. The appeal so long ago was to hear what these bands sounded like live, and considering that it seemed pretty unrealistic that I would ever actually see these bands live (it didn't occur to me that I would travel for shows some day) this was a pretty exciting thing to listen to.

Check out: The Essence

Entry The 3rd: Snapcase - Progression Through Unlearning

I got this shortly after it came out, and I never liked it as much as my Earth Crisis records. Which was stupid of me, because this album is really good, if you don't mind the weak vocals. The guitar parts are all kind of sexy, and make me want to shake my booty a little. Zombie Prescription? Harrison Bergeron? That's good stuff. Too bad back then I gave preference to music with tough SxE lyrics, because this should have been spun a little more. What an asshole.

Check out: Zombie Prescription

Entry The 2nd: Earth Crisis - All Out War

Also acquired some time in my 15th year was this ExC EP. Not as good as Destroy The Machines, it didn't get nearly as much play, although today I still know all the lyrics which at the time I thought were awesome, and today I think are different awesome. There are still some good songs on here, and the title track comes replete with a plonkity intro that I didn't realize was kind of funny back then. All in all though, the songs I like on here can be heard in better forms on other releases of theirs, which I of course have, and we will of course get to.

Check out: Ecocide

Entry The 1st: Earth Crisis - Destroy The Machines

Technically, my first CD was a compilation called Victory Style. It had a slew of bad bands on it as well as some pretty good bands, like Deadguy, Snapcase, Strife, Integrity, Bloodlet, and most importantly Earth Crisis. The songs Firestorm, Forged In The Flames, and Wrath Of Sanity really got me excited about music in a way I had never been before. This led to me receiving this album, my second CD by Earth Crisis called "Destroy The Machines" for my 15th birthday. I actually had been listening to a cassette copy that belonged to a friend's older brother for months, and finally I could listen to it on something other than my Walkman.

This is an album that has pretty consistently made it into the rotation in the many years since I first got it, and I still love it. I've listened to it consistently enough that listening to it again today doesn't "take me back" like listening to some other discs does and I love it enough that I listened to it three times instead of just the one. At this rate I'll never get through them all.

Check out: The Wrath Of Sanity

Entry The 0th

I've decided to embark on a fantastic journey through my record collection. I'm starting with the very first record I got, and then going in order right up to the end. I'm going to listen to each and every one. I don't know how long it will take me, or whether or not I'll get sick of the idea a tenth of the way through, but I'm going to give it a shot. I'll list everything I listen to here, and make some comments where I think appropriate.

Some of you have been instrumental in introducing me to different stuff, some of you have been along with me for most of the way, some of you are in the MGC, and maybe some of you just need something to waste your time on. In any case, I thought that some of you might be interested. Comments, mockery, and other cruel words welcome.