Thursday, 3 April 2025

Albums I own, but don't recall where or when I obtained them!

Another fun, random post!

The other day I was thinking about albums in my collection that I have absolutely no recollection of obtaining. I own plenty of albums I don't even like, but I still remember how and when I got them. For example, I've got a copy of Linkin Park's Hybrid Theory on my shelves. I can't stand Linkin Park, but I know why it's there - my older brother was into the alt rock/nu metal scene in the early 2000s, and it was his CD. At some point it ended up in my collection, and even though it's not my thing at all, I'm still keeping it there 'cos that's the kind of guy I am! Also, I own 3 Killswitch Engage albums - I don't like 'em. But I remember trying to get into them many moons ago!! No, the point of this post is to talk about discs in my collection I genuinely have no memory of obtaining whatsoever. Many of them I like! So here's my list in alphabetical order. I may add to it if I think of any more later.


BITCHES SIN - The Sound of Silence (2009)
A 3-track EP from New Wave of British Heavy Metal band Bitches Sin. No idea why or how I ended up with this. I'm a big fan of the NWoBHM movement; I have lots of albums from many different bands, but why I'd pick up an EP and not a complete album from one of the more obscure bands of that scene is strange to me. Normally if I spot a NWoBHM release in the wild that I don't have, I'll buy it (assuming it isn't crazy expensive) - but I can't imagine prioritising getting this. But I must've done, because I own it! Either way, the music here is rather good. It's from 2009 and you can tell it's not one of their early releases, but I can tell that it's a veteran band playing traditional metal of course. Solid, crunchy heavy metal - 'nuff said.


FEEDER - Comfort in Sound (2002)
Feeder are one of those bands I've always quite liked before I got hooked on music at age 13. They were kinda big here in the UK around the early 2000s and I still think some of their singles from that time are great. Just solid, catchy rock! Often nonsensical and/or dumb lyrics, sure, but fun! I don't ever remember buying this album, Comfort in Sound (their 4th) however. The one before (Echo Park), yes, but not this one. I just stuck 'Just the Way I'm Feeling' on from this album now - I haven't heard it in forever, and what a great song! The rest of this album is fairly varied musically, and better than I remembered. Some of it is a bit too lightweight at times, but songs like 'Helium' and 'Godzilla' give me a lot of '90s alternative/grunge vibes (of course, they'd already made 2 albums in the '90s). I don't enjoy this album as much as Echo Park, but it's rather good either way!


FLEETWOOD MAC - Fleetwood Mac (2006)
A compilation of early Fleetwood Mac material - we're talkin' the Peter Green years of the '60s, when they were a fully-fledged blues band. A very different band to what they would become later, and definitely not as successful commercially. Of course there's gonna be purists out there who prefer OG Fleetwood Mac, even if both iterations barely sound alike. Me? Well, I've always liked blues up to a point, so I'll take the Peter Green era. But I can't call myself a fan at all - I don't remember buying this CD, and I don't know where it's come from. It looks like a budget release, so there's little in the way of any track information/CD booklet etc., and I'm definitely not a big enough fan to actually have bought this with my own money. Oddly enough, I do own a copy of the self-titled 1968 debut, but that's the only Fleetwood Mac album I remember physically buying in a shop. As for this compilation, I think it potentially could have been a disc someone in my family was throwing out, until I rescued it. Not sure though. 


HATEBREED - For the Lions (2009)
I've always somewhat liked this band. I'm a fan of the debut, Satisfaction Is the Death of Desire and also 2003's Rise of Brutality. The rest of their stuff is just decent to me - they're almost always listenable, but not good enough for me to want to collect their entire discography. Good live band though! Anyway, For the Lions is a covers album, and these things are almost always patchy. The only covers albums I actively seek out are one's from my absolute favourite bands, for collection purposes. So why I have this particular one from a band I only casually enjoy is beyond me! As a covers album, it's alright I guess - covers from hardcore bands like Cro-Mags, D.R.I., Suicidal Tendencies, Agnostic Front, Bad Brains etc., but also metal bands like Obituary, Metallica, Slayer and Sepultura. Probably worth hearing once, but not much more.


JAMES IHA - Let It Come Down (1998)
Solo album from the Smashing Pumpkins' long-time guitarist. I've not listened to it much at all, but I've just heard a couple tracks from it for the first time in forever as I'm typing this and it's not bad! A floaty, mostly mellow chilled out alt rock album. Lots of acoustic and electric guitars with some Pumpkins flair, but definitely not trying to sound like them either. Plus, James is a surprisingly competent vocalist. But as for where and when I got this, who knows?


JUDAS PRIEST - The Collection (1989)
A compilation that I supposedly picked up because it was cheap, according to my Judas Priest review page anyway. But where I bought it from I don't remember at all! Even if it was cheap, it's still a relatively pointless purchase, other than to make my collection look better. It's practically the same album as 1981's Hero, Hero (a compilation of the first 2 Priest records, Rocka Rolla and Sad Wings of Destiny), in that it has the same artwork and the tracklisting is nearly identical. The only difference is this one is missing the song 'Caviar and Meths' from Rocka Rolla and the order of the tracklisting is different. Having any extra Priest discs in my collection is no bad thing because they're one of my absolute favourite bands, but I really don't remember buying this, especially since I already owned Hero, Hero.


KING - Sufferance Obsolescent (2008)
Black metal from Canada. Looking at their Metallum page, this and a couple of demos are the only things they recorded. This album is just okay in my books. The guitar riffs aren't just your usual tremolo-picking affair, and even sound a little traditionally metal-inspired at times which is nice. There's also lots of keyboards to make for a doomy atmosphere, but the vocals are subpar and bring the album down a notch sadly. Music good, vocals not so good. Average BM album. Many of my underground metal CDs (death metal, black metal etc.) are pickups from Bloodstock festival, this definitely isn't one of them. Not a clue how long it's been in my collection, or where I got it!


MACHINE HEAD - Hellalive (2003)
A live album from a band I'm not even all that keen on. Hell, for me I'd even say Machine Head are one of the more overrated bands in metal, and I'm not sure why I own as many albums from them as I do. I've even got a crappy page on here about them, which I wrote way back in 2017!! Yep, that one's in desperate need of a re-write, but I don't know if I can bring myself to do it. I like a few of their albums, the rest of the ones I have are either poor or mediocre in my books. As for Hellalive, I apparently thought it was decent when I wrote about it in 2017 (although 'American High' is still one of the worst metal songs of all time), but I definitely wouldn't have gone out of my way to actually get this one in my collection. I think it must've been a cheap record shop find.


STURMTIGER - World at War 1914-1918 (2014)
A First World War-themed death metal concept album, with maybe some hints of black metal here and there too. Like that King album, this is underground extreme metal to the core, but I don't know where I got it. Maybe I did pick it up at Bloodstock one year? I don't remember either way! Unlike that King album however, this one is pretty good. I like it. The music is full of dirty, grimey guitars, endless blastbeats and insanely low growling vocals. I love military history, and the fact it's a WWI-inspired metal album that isn't Sabaton is likely why I bought it. 


TESTAMENT - Live at Eindhoven (1987)
A band I haven't talked about much on this blog, but also a band I really like and own a number of their releases. Anyhow, I have this live album on vinyl, but I don't recall where or when I got it. I wouldn't have bought it online, so I can definitely rule that out. It's a cool thing to have in my collection though - it came out just after their first album, The Legacy (one of the best thrash albums ever in my opinion), so the tracklisting is pretty much made up entirely of those songs - aside from an Alex Skolnick guitar solo that is. Guitar tones are a bit janky, but the energy and raw power of this show is entertaining as hell.


TRIVIUM - Ascendancy (2005)
Well, I have genuinely no clue whatsoever why, how or when I bought this album. I never liked Trivium - I remember when Ascendancy came out in '05. I was in school and at the very beginnings of my CD collection. So I was buying oldies from bands like AC/DC, Black Sabbath, Metallica, Iron Maiden etc., and Trivium to me were kind of like a lame emo metal band to me. The few lads that were into heavier music dug this, but not the classics. I was the opposite. A bit harsh in retrospect, but I'm no metalcore fan. Like, AT ALL. I'd even pick nu metal over metalcore, because there's at least a handful of bands and records from that genre I like for nostalgic reasons more than anything. So how Ascendancy ended up in my collection is baffling! I never bought this back in school, so I must have bought it either in my late teens or as an adult!! My copy is in almost mint condition, so I think I must have bought it brand new. Last year I finished my Venom collection, and I swapped the jewel case for the album Fallen Angels with Ascendancy's because it was in better condition and I care way more about the condition of my Venom discs than I do this Trivium CD!! But yeah, I really don't like this album still. 'Dying in Your Arms' is a song that makes me wanna vomit. I hear that Trivium have moved away from the metalcore sound of their early albums like Ascendancy and The Crusade, to the point where I've been actively recommended their 2021 album In the Court of the Dragon (and even 2008's Shogun) because they're not like they were in the mid-2000s, but to me they'll always be that annoying metalcore band I knew as a teenager in school. Maybe someday I'll force myself to give 'em another try.


UFO - Mechanix (1982)
Oh I absolutely get why this is in my collection, because I love UFO. I just don't remember buying it on vinyl!! I have every UFO album, and I definitely had this one on CD before whenever and wherever it was I got it on vinyl. I remember when I bought my house in 2022 and moved all my music collection over to my new home, I found this in my vinyl stack and was pleasantly surprised. But when or where I got, I genuinely have no idea. It's an old pressing, so I think I may have gotten it at an antique store many years ago or something. Definitely not a record fair. Anyhow, Mechanix is a great album from the underrated Paul Chapman guitar era, and I've already reviewed it here. 3 out of 4 albums Chapman recorded with UFO are classics in my opinion.


UNEARTH - Unearth (2004)
I have genuinely no idea why I own this. For starters, it's not even an album - it's some sort of promo DVD in a jewel case. So it looks like a regular album on my shelf, until you pull it out and look at the disc. Secondly, Unearth are a metalcore band, and I really don't get on with metalcore. I know I said I liked Hatebreed, but they always go hard because they fuse METAL with HARDCORE and aren't really associated with the stereotype. For whatever reason, metalcore normally means cringe-worthy breakdowns, whiny pop melodies and audiences of scene kids, i.e. early Trivium, Killswitch Engage, Parkway Drive etc.. It's easily one of my least favourite metal subgenres. Therefore, this disc has never been played since my ownership of it!! Obviously I don't remember acquiring this, otherwise it wouldn't be listed - but I'm just gonna assume that whenever it was I got it, I looked up Unearth on Metal Archives, found out they were a metalcore band, and it's been gathering dust ever since. It's purely in my collection to make it look bigger.


ROB ZOMBIE - Hellbilly Deluxe (1998)
I was never a Rob Zombie fan, but I have this and White Zombie's Astro-Creep: 2000 in my collection. The White Zombie album I remember buying from Amazon marketplace years and years ago, this one not so much. But I can only guess I got it around the same time as that White Zombie disc? Anyhow, Hellbilly Deluxe is kind of a classic whichever way you look at it. I never fully got into the whole industrial style of the '90s, more like just a few bands/albums here and there that I like. Definitely not one of my favourite genres by any stretch of the imagination, but not really one I hold any sort of grudge against either. I've gotta say though, I just listened to a few songs from this album... and I'm kinda diggin' it! Catchy as hell! Sometimes all it takes is 10+ years of not listening to an album before finally returning to enjoy it!