V/A The First 100 2xLP
Ah, the glorified label sampler disguised as a compilation. Oh, how I loathe these. I mean all of these songs have been previously released, so other than different variants for the collector nerd, there’s really no reason to obtain this album. Unless…you are unfamiliar with the roster of bands and looking to discover some new-to-you bands and releases. Like every compilation, this has its hits and misses for me, although the misses outweigh the hits. That may sound a bit negative, but there are two reasons for that: I prefer more of the current releases from Triple B, and the lack of diversity in style here. I realize that Triple B is a hardcore label, it’s just that more often than not, a lot of the stuff here starts getting monotonous—with 50 tracks of hardcore that’s bound to happen. That’s not to say there isn’t some killer stuff on here, because there is, it’s just a bit much to wade through to uncover. That said, this is a tremendous undertaking to try and document 100 releases, so that in and of itself deserves a bit of praise.