The collab I didn't know I needed just dropped. @chatpileband.bsky.social and Hayden Pedigo's "In The Earth Again" is doom-laced twang wrapped in atmosphere thick enough to wade through for days.

Pressed on oxblood vinyl and sealed inside a ziplocked aluminum package... a first for me.

Yes. Most of what it offers I’ll never use, but the pseudo GPS navigator is neat. Would be better if it was integrated directly in the game though.

Nintendo Switch 2 and Pro Controller boxes positioned in front of a TV playing The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.

Zelda Notes is a bit clunky, but it gets the job done for collecting all the Koroks I missed.

It’s a gloomy Monday, which makes it the perfect time to spin Melody of Certain Damaged Lemons by Blonde Redhead. My copy is the 180 gram 2011 reissue from Touch and Go, and it sounds incredible... taking me back to the early 2000s.

I wasn’t cool enough to know about Heroin in the early 90s. My introduction came later, and by the time I started collecting their stuff around 2003, it was all Vinyl Communications and Gravity represses.

Back when I first discovered Three One G, “Both Feet In The Grave” by The Crimson Curse got the reissue treatment on a single-sided 12", pressed on blood red vinyl sometime between 1999 and 2001.

Plays like pure San Diego hardcore punk with a bit of sleazy synthesizer.

Nice! Yes definitely still around. I just picked up a new 10" of theirs. It’s slowed down a bit and less grindy, but still sounds like them.

Antipodes – a 7" compilation released in 2000 by Level Plane Records on transparent red vinyl, featuring screamo heavy hitters The Assistant, Neil Perry, Hassan I Sabbah, Jeromes Dream, and Usurp Synapse.

Who has pics of the silk-screened cover version?

Are You Down?? came out in 2002 on Troubleman Unlimited. Doesn't quite hit as hard for me as the band's Panthers was born from. But the strong visuals I can get behind...

What happens when a band like Orchid trades throat shredding screams for swaggering rock and roll with a political pulse?

You get Panthers. Born from the wreckage of Orchid, The Red Scare, and Pitchblende.
Think MC5 and The Nation of Ulysses. Less breakdowns. More boring?

Hah, they sure do. When I’m too lazy to pull a record 90% a YouTube search lands me on their channel.

Oh cool. I haven’t seen or heard this.

Pageninetynine — Document #8 [10"]

Released by Electric Human Project in 2001 on yellow vinyl.

Pg.99 are the masters of building up tension that explodes into a crescendo of chaos. I can still feel the goosebumps from seeing them perform live nearly 25 years ago.

Pressed on a lovely shade of green vinyl, this 2000 release from Day After Records is a screamy, melodic gut punch with riffs that cut sharper than your DIY haircut in high school.

Ah yes, Four Hundred Years' The New Imperialism — the 10" that reminds you that emo and politics could mesh together... before everything turned into playlists of sadness.

Sarin’s self-titled 7”, released by Immigrant Sun Records in 1996. Hardcore emo from Ithaca, New York.

Never have I ever seen duct tape used so effectively on a record cover.

For sure.

Released in 2000 on Magister Ludi Records, this thing takes a more heavy and dark turn compared to "The Music Stops, The Man Dies", but it's still Waifle being Waifle.

File this one under records that look like they sound chaotic, unhinged, and probably dangerous if left in the wrong hands. Waifle’s "And The Blood Will Come Down Like A Curtain" is a 10-inch slab of screamo carnage wrapped in a cover that looks like a cursed scroll from an ancient hardcore sect.

Stumbled across this split LP years ago and grabbed it because “Amalgamation” looked familiar—then it hit me. Their split 7" with Jeromes Dream. Figured this had to be worth a spin.

Released on Rice Control in 1997, this one’s black vinyl only—no fancy variants.

Solid Brass came through with a reissue of The Camera Obscura's “To Change the Shape of an Envelope.” A synth-heavy masterpiece that phases between post-hardcore and shoegaze fever dreams. Remastered, pressed on ruby red vinyl, with new artwork by GSL founder and Angelhair/The VSS fame, Sonny Kay.

Feels like I’ve been waiting 25 years to own this on vinyl… probably because I have.

Numero Group nailed it with this 25th-anniversary gatefold reissue: sturdy sleeves, 2 LPs, and a lush silver finish that perfectly complements the muted tones of the sleeve’s photography.

Blasting off into the cosmos on a wave of Y2K era emo-electronica spinning Marc Bianchi’s Her Space Holiday’s “Home Is Where You Hang Yourself” on silver (warmly tinted) vinyl.

The perfect soundtrack for this slow, quiet weekend.

Sign me up for remasters of Phantasmagoria 1&2 and Gabriel Knight: The Beast Within with higher resolution video and assets...

Box art of Phantasmagoria behind a display case at the Museum of Play in Rochester New York.

I fondly remember screwing around with autoexec.bat and config.sys files in MS-DOS to properly load Soundblaster and CD-ROM drivers into memory, just to play on a shitty Packard Bell.

Close-up of a micro keyboard with a television screen blurred in the background playing ScummVM via Batocera.

Wild to be playing some of my favorite Sierra FMV "point-and-click" adventure games on a couch.