Sunday Sesh: Bandcamp Classics
If you’re anything like me, Bandcamp has rapidly subsumed the portion(s) of your brain dedicated to musical acquisition. Any vestigial traces relating to the archaic concept of The Record Store™ have all but dissolved. However, until recently there was one thing it was missing…
Sure, digitally downloadable albums offer nearly instantaneous gratification, are convenient, typically much cheaper, and are more environmentally friendly among other things, but nothing will beat the feeling of holding a new record in your hands. What? You can usually buy physical copies of albums on Bandcamp too? Well fuck. Luddite? What does that word even mean? Look, it’s all well and good for you kids to run around sit in the comfort of your home and pick up the latest Megałah and Gnip Van Hålen albums on release day, but when you need to hear where all your fave bands stole their riffs, courtesy of a classic death metal album, you’ll have to come borrow our out-of-print classic CD’s or risk contaminating the entire cloud with a highly infectious siqqtorrentz.ru file.
Well, that may have been the case a couple of years ago, but recently I’ve noticed more and more classic albums popping up on Bandcamp. Courtesy of some labels/bands willing to embrace progress to ensure their survival into the future, you can now pick up a great deal of the genre’s essentials without scouring stores or giving your wallet the equivalent of a viking funeral to appease some Discogs despot. Today I thought we could share our collective classic finds, and maybe throw out some requests for those few bands/labels still holding out on making some money from fans, while people just pirate or listen through YouTube instead.
Some of my all-time faves have been popping up recently, perhaps most notably – The Chasm‘s discography is now available. Buy. It. Now.
Hammerheart Records started uploading the first Pestilence albums a couple of months back, so far they’re up to Spheres.
Rippikoulu was something I’d been considering getting a used copy of for a while, until a cursory search revealed Svart had this seminal Finnish death-doom masterpiece up for the taking.
While we’re on the topic of classic Finnish death…
Greyhaze have your Mystifier needs sorted
Weirdo death fans can score Timeghoul‘s discog compilation.
Nocternity‘s back catalogue of epic black majesty is online, with merch options too.
Relapse offer a veritable feast of their current roster and alumni’s material, including some of the metal Mastodon albums, Neurosis, DEP, classic Nile, Suffo, High On Fire (pre-Lizard brain), Amorphis, Mortician, Origin, Incantation, Merzbow, DiSEMBOWLMENT, Spawn Of Possession and 46752 other bands. Also, every Death reissue and deluxe reissue you could ever want.
And if you’re ok with giving Earache money, they’re steadily adding albums from the artists they’ve acquired over the years. Many uploaded as Full Dynamic Range editions too, such as Carnage
Nocturnus for your sci-fi fix
and Bolt Thrower (actually, maybe just rip these Earache ones instead).
So those are some of my scores. What have you found on your travels? What would you like to see uploaded? Discuss in the comments.
