This Saturday, April 19th is Record Store Day 2014, a day when music collectors line up early in the morning in the hopes of getting their hands on some new and often exclusive records.
What is Record Store Day?
Record Store Day was conceived in 2007 at a gathering of independent record store owners and employees as a way to celebrate and spread the word about the unique culture surrounding nearly 1000 independently owned record stores in the US and thousands of similar stores internationally. There are Record Store Day participating stores on every continent except Antarctica. (from recordstoreday.com)
For record collectors, the major incentive to care about this occasion (beyond, possibly, a deep and general appreciation for independent record stores) is the special release list, and the potential to snag a rare collectors’ item-to be. The list isn’t genre-specific – you’ll see titles to appeal to a wide range of tastes – but you’re guaranteed to find some mouth-watering metal releases scheduled for special Record Store Day release. The trick, though, can be actually snagging one of these babies…
Hellbound Recommends
To save you mining the long Record Store Day Special Releases list (unless you enjoy that kind of thing) we’ve taken a gander at the catalogue of upcoming releases and filtered through them to give you a few of our recommendations on what you should be grabbing.
Between the Buried and Me – ‘Colors_Live’ (Victory Records)
RSD Exclusive Release. Colours_Live will be pressed as a solid red double LP which will be limited to 1400 copies.
Clutch / Lionize – ‘Split 7″’ (Weathermaker Music)
RSD Exclusive Release. New track from Clutch, and new track from Lionize, a new band on Clutch’s Weathermaker Music label.
Dream Theater – ‘Illumination Theory’ (Atlantic)
RSD Exclusive Release. A picture disc single for the epic 21-minute track from the band’s latest, self titled album.
Ghoul – ‘Hang Ten’ (Tankcrimes)
RSD Limited Run. Hang Ten is a limited edition six-song (mostly) instrumental EP. Featuring guest vocals from Tony Foresta (Municipal Waste, Iron Reagan) and the inimitable R.A. MacLean (ex-Deadbolt).
Gojira – ‘The Way of All Flesh’ (Prosthetic)
RSD Limited Run. 2LP, 350 copies on blue-white vinyl.
Katatonia – ‘Kocytean’ (Peaceville)
RSD Exclusive Release. Katatonia collectors and vinyl lovers will be pleased to know that the band has compiled some of their most rare and appreciated b-sides on 12″ vinyl for the first time ever. Printed on matte reversed stock and limited to 2000 copies.
Machine Head – ‘A New Machine’ (Nuclear Blast)
RSD Exclusive Release. A 10″ with a new Machine Head track on the A-side and two Ignite covers on the B-side. Four covers randomly distributed.
TRACK LISTING: “Killers & Kings”/”Into”/”Our Darkest Days”/B”leeding”
Mastodon – ‘Live at Brixton’ (Reprise)
RSD Exclusive Release. This special 180-gram vinyl pressing is the only physical version of their special show and includes a DVD of the entire performance, 2 x 12″ vinyl.
Motorhead – ‘Aftershock’ (UDR)
RSD Exclusive Release. Special edition picture vinyl which is strictly limited and numbered.
Opeth – ‘Watershed’ (Roadrunner)
RSD Exclusive Release. Reissue of the 2008 album on double green vinyl.
Type O Negative – ‘Slow, Deep and Hard’ (Metal Blade)
RSD Exclusive Release. Double 180-gram vinyl in gatefold sleeves, previously only available in a box set.
Participating Stores
Not sure where to go? Check out a list of participating stores in Canada at recordstoreday.com.
