2025 has sort of been a crazy year. I shipped a few orders for the first time internationally which seemed like a cool milestone (thanks Royal Mail). Getting to see a little bit of the world for the first time at 40 with my wife was amazing and I hope to explore Europe more again in the future. I’ve had to deal with some family medical things where I have had a few weeks out of town that have slowed down shipping if you happened to have ordered at that time. And I tried to book two shows and successfully only booked a single show but it was a full rager (see previous post with Dry Socket show flier, unfortunately the Assholeparade show didn’t happen).

What will be new in 2026? Not much, a few releases planned. Will, then why post this? Finally have a free moment.

I upgraded my webstore which shouldn’t be too obvious to anyone but figured out a bit of the templating to make my life easier. I still seem to have some hosting problems but I made a backup site in case I need to move away from my host – who is legitimately kind and has let me run on free or cheap hosting for years so that has been my hesitation. The site has been fully optimize which means I took all last weekend to delete 1800 old disabled long out of stock products and resized all images down to under 200kb for faster loading. Both processes should help hedge against the issues I have on new release days.

What else is still the same? Still distribute amazing 625 Thrashcore releases. Amazing to work with Max and love that he still puts out releases and trusts me with retail. Our releases are still available from Independent Label Distribution who does a great job getting copies in mom and pop stores across the country and internationally. Ebullition is still helping getting records of ours to the DIY-sters of the world. Still trying to keep up the Bandcamp page and releases up on digital platforms (other than a lot being removed from Spotify).

I want to hear more about you personally. Well I got married last year and I work a lot. I am a systems administrator at the university here and would love to talk nerd stuff with anyone interested. Also attended a few tech conference this year. I have tried out for a backup player of a local band who worships Man Is The Bastard but haven’t had time to fully learn the songs but other than that I’m not actively playing music. I joined a D&D group with old friends from college and appreciate that other people can make it fun and creative as I am not bringing either of those to the table. This year I continued to be a heavy supporter of my local men’s D2 soccer team but in a crazy turn of events the owner has basically paused the team for three years so I’m sad to see my favorite players at NCFC announce where they are headed to next. I’ll become a strong NC Courage supporter in 2026. In 2025 I did manage to see Arsenal v. Bournemouth which was the sports event of a lifetime. Since the pandemic I’ve gotten more into PVP games and play a lot of Fortnite which includes reconnecting with members of the band Deathrats. Feel free to add me, I think my Epic name is fastcore and my PSN is willfastcore. In 2025 I watched a lot of movies, 150 per my Letterboxd (feel free to add me I’m fastcore on there, and don’t judge me that I just watched Romper Stomper). I feel like post-pandemic life has been a lot more solitary. I spend a lot of time with my wife but I think a lot of social interactions have been cut down and not reformed. I honestly haven’t had even a lot of time to interact online including the TLAL Discord channel.

Okay nevermind, tell me about what is coming up on the label now.

STRAGGLER – Without A Country 7″ – Check their Bandcamp for older material, but the material we have coming out are three songs of modern hardcore with blastbeats akin to SPY worshipping HARM’S WAY. A bit more cleaned up compare to their previous releases. Bay Area represent.

SPY – Service Weapon 7″ 2026 repress – You absolutely know what this is and love it. The new pressing has a recut B-side which I only mention because we pressed so many that the plates just fell apart. This time we have smoke vinyl with silvery definitions on the printed material and center labels.

DRY SOCKET / VIOLENCIA – split 7″ 2026 repress – This things sold out in a week so we are making another 500. Most copies are on mixed vinyl with one special colorway for DS’s overseas run

SUPER SECRET 12″ – This is a classic that I’ll try to say just enough that maybe a few people will get it. But it was pressed to a 7″ and it is two originals and a cover song. Remastered with new artwork. Bigger hint, if you have the EP you might have the country’s flag colorway and be excited you have that.

Those are the main things percolating here. Oh well wait there will be a Black Friday sale but most of you expect that, might be more generous this year however. Thank you all for all the support and stay tuned.

Portland’s own Dry Socket is bringing their raw, high-energy sound to Raleigh for one night only at RUMAH on Thursday, October 17th. Known for blistering riffs, cathartic vocals, and an unrelenting stage presence, Dry Socket delivers a sonic punch that’s impossible to ignore.
Listen here  https://drysocketpdx.bandcamp.com

Joining them are Charlotte’s heavy hitters MERC, plus local support from Natural End and Super Reg—a stacked lineup of hardcore and punk energy that guarantees a night of chaos and catharsis.

 Doors: 8PM
 Cover: $15
 Venue: RUMAH – Raleigh, NC
 All ages

Come early and get loud. This one’s going to rip. 

Presale tickets available at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/dry-socket-merc-natural-end-super-reg-rumah-raleigh-10172025-tickets-1628246161099

We have recovered from our hosting issues and are back in the country to have the full store back up and a 20% discount on orders over $5 until the end of May with coupon code WeAreBackBaby25 at checkout.

Hello all,

The site was down through the whole Heaven’s Gate preorder and took down our store. Thanks for bearing with us and order from the temp Bigcartel store.

What happened? I had set up a spam reporter maybe six months ago and it ended up flagging the upstream cloud hosting company in some reports and made it look like my domain was spamming users so my host got a takedown order. I think this is all related to how my domain loops emails to my Gmail aka I basically reported myself as there was an extra jump in the email so headers point to my domain This was a perfect storm because my hosting company is a one-man operation and he was away for a joyous moment in his life.

The main full store will remain down until late May and we will continue to take preorders from the Bigcartel site. We are taking a bit of a break and will be back up to full speed as soon as we can.

Appreciate your patience. We have a few releases on deck that you’ll be excited about:

• Drivel – Self Titled 7″
• Goolagoon – Patrickviolence 7″ (remastered)
• Dry Socket / Violencia – Split 7″

Really excited for this one, http://toliveal.ie/suppression and check the Decibel.com full audio stream.

Dry Socket – Sorry For Your Loss LP 

DRY SOCKET emerging from Stumptown with their debut LP featuring ten furious tracks laden with blast beats and downtrodden ethos. Chaotic, angular, and angry, the band is back after two blazing EPs and five years of perfecting their sound. If you like PAINT IT BLACK, PUNCH, or NEGATIVE APPROACH then you won’t be disappointed. One really dystopian release that mirrors the bleak
wintertime in the PNW. 

Caveman – Self Titled 7″ 

San Francisco’s CAVEMAN drags their knuckles right out of the bay and into the blasty hardcore punk zeitgeist with five stomping dirges to whet your Neanderthalic appetite. After two sold out runs of this material on cassette, this first EP is now available here as a limited pressing on vinyl. Since this recording, the band has taken on SPY singer Peter Pawlak on bass for their live show and future releases. This is pissed, fist pumping hardcore, to take our your anger after a long day with all the horrible stuff going on the world. FFO GULCH, SPY, and SUNAMI but with their own slant.

More big stuff coming up soon. I have three unannounced LPs at the plant, one remastered release from 1999 never on vinyl before and two brand new 2024 material from exciting current bands.

Insanely busy 2023, I appreciate all your support. I apologize for the quality of Photoshop but it’s serviceable enough for me to post

Three tapes up for order now! Names you might not be familiar with as they are new and first offerings. BLIND SOLUTION is members of SIDETRACKED, NATURAL END is members of JOY, and NUCLER BLUD is members of SCHOLASTIC DETH, JUD JUD, IN/HUMANITY and more. Get in at the ground floor on all of these bands!

Brand new LP from AZ industrial metal supergroup featuring band members from SEX PRISONER, LANGUISH, GATECREEPER, and more. Only 150 on purple vinyl and 350 black vinyl available. Preorder here: https://toliveal.ie/realize