Mankind

Quick post about a classic record. Infest, a band that needs no introduction, and I'm sure we all know about their crucial part of hardcore's progression. Pretty much ground-zero for American powerviolence. This is their 2nd self-titled 7", a reissue by Deep Six and Draw Blank records, grey vinyl, 45 RPM.

I found this copy for an insanely good price on discogs, so low that I thought it was a bootleg copy. But nope, legit reissue. It's sometimes referred to as the "Mankind EP", due to the 10" repress which took on that name. Classic in every sense of the word. It's crazy how many bands are still replicating this bands sound today, it's just timeless! We've all been guilty of stealing an Infest riff, whether we realize it at the time or not. This copy is a little strange. There are many variants of this record floating around, mostly with different colored covers. The tan ones for some reason come with an over-sized sleeve. Not sure why this is, but it was a bit annoying to make a custom plastic sleeve for it. Collector problems.

Looks like screen printed covers. Comes with a lyric sheet too.

~VII

Days Turn Black

For those of you living under a rock, Infest have been pretty active for the majority of the year, playing shows all over the US. One of those dates was at this years Maryland Deathfest, which of course, was a huge deal. I believe it was their first ever appearance on the East Coast, and I was fortunate enough to bare witness and experience it. I met someone there who came all the way from Australia to see the show even! Fantastic show, as expected, and they actually got a special releases for these shows out. It's something I was actually wondering if they would do, any sort of new material would be huge. Low and behold when I walked up to the merch table, they had a new 7", which I promptly bought. Infest - "Days Turn Black", 1-sided 7", 45 RPM.

Not exactly "new" material, just unreleased. All of the four tracks on here were unreleased cuts from the "No Man's Slave" session. And honestly, it's pretty obvious why the tracks were left of the album. The three originals on here aren't really all that great. At best, it's just mediocre Infest songs. A couple weirder riffs are thrown in that don't really work, but the Negative Approach song at the end is decent. Not a strong release on it's own, but I'm still very happy to have it.

A nice, sturdy glued sleeve, with the credits and info very unfortunately printed on the inside of the sleeve. Whyyyyyyy.

~VII