End Reign - Suicide Collection Tape

The first 7" I got ever was an End Reign 7" and that sparked off my obsession with vinyl records. They've been an ever present band in the UK and this tape, Suicide Collection gathers together all of their recorded output so far and placed it all on one tape. Originally released by Church of Fuck earlier this year, it was not only one of that labels last tape releases but was also End Reigns precursor release, before unleashing their full-length later this year. Needless to say, the CoF pressing sold out bloody quickly and so it was repressed by Witchunter Records. I've got both copies, plus the original End Reign T-shirt that was produced to coincide with it's release. Check out my photos below:-

The CoF tape -

It came wrapped in this sweet T-shirt -

After the CoF pressing sold out, Witch Hunter Records repressed it with different artwork and a different T-shirt (not pictured).

The tape features a demo of a track called Sacrifice that's going to be on their new album, a re-recorded version of Release The Wolves, the songs from their self-titled 7" that was released by Fist In The Air Records, Hemlock 13, Holy Roar and Witch Hunter Records, the songs from their split with Alaska that was released by Fist In The Air Records, the tracks from their self-released 2010 demo and a also a full twenty minute live-set.

Tracklisting:-

1. Sacrifice
2. Release The Wolves (2012 Version)
3. Horror
4. Abyss
5. To Pray For
6. Dream Eater
7. Release The Wolves
8. Paradise
9. The Freeze
10. Azrael
11. DCCXXI
12. The Great Fall

13 Live Set

Side A kicks of with the demo for new song Sacrifice. In true End Reign style, it's a bruising slab of noise, fusing together hardcore and metal. In it's demo form it's even more ferocious and hints at what's coming on their new album. Such a good song, filled with rock n roll riffs and powerful drumming. The vocals compete with the crashing of the cymbals, which just raises the volume further. The re-recorded version of Release The Wolves (which originally appeared on their split with Alaska) sounds just as huge. End Reign have one of the most unique sounds in the UK scene in my opinion. Their mixture of hardcore and sludge is a hell of a proposition for the uninitiated but always puts a major shit-eating grin on your face.

Next up are the four tracks from their self-titled 7". The vocals on Horror will out and out scare you. That may sound corny, but it's true. Geoff Cairns is just possessed! The next three songs, Abyss, To Pray For and Dream Eater are just the same. Ferocious, but with epic riffs! By now, most people reading this review will have heard of End Reign is some capacity and will probably own some of their music. Where this tape makes sense, is that it's got everything collected together and it gives new fans a place to start before they take the plunge and buy End Reign's new record once it's released. Things settle down for a brief moment during the intro to The Freeze MMXI, which is a re-recoding of one of their early demo tracks. Release The Wolves and Paradise featured on their early split with Alaska. Listening to them gives you a sense of how their sound has progressed, certainly in the metallic sense anyway. There seem to be more metallic riffs in these songs, but then in might just be me!

I like the fact that the songs are in reverse-chronological order too. Normally they are the other way round, but this charts their sound from their recent songs back to their roots. Continuing that order are the four songs from their first demo, which actually still manage to sound the rawest of the lot. Don't know if it was meant to be that way, but it works. The bass on The Great Fall sounds fearsome. I love the warm, low-end rumble that you get from the bass, especially when it's on a tape. The final number on here is in fact one whole 20-minute live set. If the rest of tape didn't give you a clue as to their furious live sound, then this will. In spite of the production being a bit quiet, it still does the job, especially where the guitars are concerned.

You can listen to whole tape on CoF's bandcamp page below:-


As I mentioned above, the first pressing is sold out from Church of Fuck but you can get copies of the second pressing from Witch Hunter Records at http://witchhunterrecords.bigcartel.com/.

Witch Hunter also has it up for name-your-price download via their bandcamp page here http://witchhunterrecords.bandcamp.com/ and you can get pre-order bundles (including their t-shirt) still from the big cartel page.

You can buy End Reign merch (including the above pictured t-shirt) from http://endreign.bigcartel.com/.

https://www.facebook.com/endreign
https://www.facebook.com/churchoffck
https://www.facebook.com/WitchHunterRecords