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 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