Here is Cold World's latest LP, "How the Gods Chill". As you can see, it has a nearly identical layout to their last LP. Cold World has always been one of my favorite bands. Needless to say, I was really excited about this release but somehow I missed out on the most limited color. What a fail.
Now down to the record. I have been listening to this pretty much non stop, and it took me a few listens to truly appreciate it. It definitely has a lot more of the Metallica style singing parts then their previous releases, but it is truly an excellent album. This may be Cold World's best stuff yet. The tracks with Kool G Rap and Meyhem Lauren are epic, but I think they should have brought in someone else besides Meyhem Lauren who they've already worked with. I've been dying to see a Cold World/M.O.P. collaboration for a while now. There are a ton of great tracks on this, but "The Real Deal" may replace "Refuse to Lose" as everyones favorite song during live sets.
Back cover. It is so awesome they brought Kool G Rap, one of the best gangster rappers of all time in on this release. Now they've worked with some of the hardest rappers in the game when you include Sean Price and Kool G Rap.
Insert front. Apparently all Cold World release art must have little kids and dogs in them.
Lyrics if you want em, and they are good.
I settled for the clear vinyl over the white vinyl. I'm not sure how many were pressed, but I believe it was pressed on blue as the most limited, then clear and then white. If anyone knows the pressing info please enlighten us in the comments!
Sean Price is one of my favorite rappers ever. You may know him as the rapper with Cold World on "How the Gods Chill", but he has had a 20 plus year career in underground hip hop. He is in my top 10 dead OR alive favorite rappers, and is criminally under rated. When I saw the pre order for his latest LP (and first album since his 2007 classic "Jesus Price Superstar"), I was all over it. I was thrilled to find out that the pre orders came on a limited "Ape Blood" splatter vinyl that goes perfectly with the cover. It is hard to see in my crappy pictures but he basically beat the hell out of a bunch of apes. This is kind of a play on his first album where he was on the cover fighting with a bunch of apes (see below).
Unfortunately, this is probably the weakest of all of Sean P's full lengths. However, weak for Sean Price standards is basically head and shoulders above 99% of the competition, so this is still a great album. Also, considering his other two LP's ("Monkey Bars" and "Jesus Price Superstars") are considered some of the best East Coast hardcore hip hop albums ever made. I was really hoping this would be on the same level as his first two albums, but rappers can't make classics with every release. It just doesn't happen. With all that being said, there are still some serious heaters on this album. Sean P really goes all out against main stream rap and bullshit in the hip hop culture. Lines like "you a happy meal nigga with a toy in the box, I clap the steel nigga, put your boy in a box" or "Wake up all the crack in the street talk... It's made up like Jack and the bean stalk" are just fucking brutal. At 40+ years old, Sean P still got it.
For this Record Store Day, I was most excited to get Notorious BIG's "Ready to Die" and the GZA's "Liquid Swords" box set. I wasn't able to get Biggie's LP, but Liquid Swords was a great consolation price. Liquid Swords is not only one of the best Wu Tang solo side projects, but one of the best hip hop albums ever recorded. Mention Liquid Swords around any true hip hop head and they'll tell you whats up with it. GZA The Genius drops some serious knowledge over super grimey beats, with almost every song being a classic on this release.
Here was one of the stickers on the shrink wrap that I unfortunately had to rip off to get to the good stuff. If this was just a regular old LP maybe I would have kept it wrapped, but being that there was an entire chess box inside there is no way I could resist opening it!
As you can see this was a pretty huge box. I won't even be able to put this on my record shelves, I'll have to put it somewhere on display.
This is what it looked like when I first opened it up. Super cool artwork all over this thing!
A very cool sticker set that will surely never be used.
The cover of the insert booklet. This thing is amazing quality. It's super thick almost like a book more than a record insert.
The first page, going with the chessbox theme.
The book has a ton of pages and contains all the lyrics as well as really cool artwork all throughout.
This is a 4LP release. It contains the full length on 2 LP's and then the instrumentals on 2 LP's. Hip Hop shit really needs to be on 2LP's. Most of the old hip hop releases were all on one lp, and now everything is pretty much on two because it makes the sound quality so much better with the deep bass lines.
I was a bit disappointed that it was all on black vinyl. They went so over the top with this release on everything else, I really think it should have been on color vinyl. I think it would have been amazing on light blue or blood red to go with the album art.
Here it is with the actual chess box in full effect. The chess pieces are very nice quality, they are all wood with the little felt stuff on the bottom of them. I have no idea how to play chess, I just put a few pieces on to give ya'll an idea.
I am really impressed with this release and happy I picked this up. For those of you that aren't that familiar with Wu Tang, you really need to check this out and some of the other Wu side projects. For years there has been a huge argument on what the best Wu solo side project is within the hip hop community. Just search it on google and you'll see page after page of forums with people arguing which is the best. Well, I'm going to give you my top 10 list. 90% of people will agree that OBFCL and Liquid Swords are the top 2 releases, but the big argument is usually about which one is better. In my opinion, here are the top 10 best (in order):
1) Raekwon - Only Built for Cuban Linx
2) GZA - Liquid Swords
3) Ghostface Killa - Iron Man
4) Ghostface Killa - Supreme Clientele
5) Ol Dirty Bastard - Return to the 36 Chambers
6) Inspectah Deck - Uncontrolled Substance
7) Method Man - Tical
8) Masta Killa - No Said Date
9) Raekwon - Immobilarity
10) Killah Priest - Heavy Mental
Check out the video for "Cold World" feat. Inspectah Deck, one of the singles on this album. And yes, this is where the band Cold World got their name from, just so you know...
When I heard that Six Feet Under was repressing Cold World's "No Omega" I was all over that shit with the pre order. The pressing info is /100 on orange, black and white splatter and /300 on orange marble. Both copies are surprisingly still available, so I would head over to the SFU store if you want one of the limited /100 copies! I am really shocked these are not long gone yet. It seems that Cold World vinyl seems to be getting cheaper and cheaper, and that's kind of sad because Cold World fucking rules. I've always been a huge Cold World fan, especially since they reference so many hip hop lyrics in their songs. My favorite hip hop reference is when they shout out "Big L Rest In Peace!" on "Low Places". Big L is my favorite rapper of all time and when my friend showed me that lyric years ago when this first came out, I was forever hooked on Cold World. As Jake already mentioned, the orange splatter copy is really one of the best looking vinyls I have ever seen. What a perfect blend of colors for this release.
So when "How the Gods Chill" with Sean Price and Cold World came out I can't even tell you guys how excited I was. Sean Price, one of my all time favorite rappers with one of my favorite hardcore bands? Fucking incredible. Alot of people have mixed feelings on that song, but to me I think that Sean Price absolutely killed it but Cold World dropped the ball on the vocals. That whole "You can't tell me nothin..." part is really annoying, they should have just had the main vocalist going back and forth with Sean P. For those of you that might not know much about rap are probably thinking "Why is he talking about Cold World and this other guy?" Well, Thats because 90's group Heltah Skeltah consists of Rock and Ruck (aka Sean Price), as seen above. Above is a $1.00 single I found in the bargain bin.
But this is the vinyl that is much more important to me. A still sealed copy of their 2nd release and their most well known album by far, "Magnum Force". I was thinking of taking the wrapping off but I figured why? I know it looks kind of bad on the vinyl after 10 plus years but I'd rather have it protected, and I don't see much point in even slicing the side to take the record out because 1) I've had it on CD and Mp3 forever and 2) This was only pressed on black vinyl. I pretty much listen to Heltah Skeltah only for Sean Price's parts, because Rock's voice really annoys me. I definitely prefer Sean Price's solo stuff but this is still some classic 90s NYC grimy hip hop stuff. If you haven't seen it yet, peep out Sean P's track with Cold World:
Since I'm going to see Cold World tonight at the Ceremony record release at the Gilman, I decided to post the Cold World/War Hungry split before I leave. Since I love hip hop, and I love hardcore, it stands to reason that I would love Cold World, right? Cold World has hip hop references in damn near all their songs, and ever since I heard the "Big L Rest in Peace!" line in "Low Places" I have always loved Cold World (Big L is my favorite rapper, ever). Here is the two copies I have, unfortunately the two most generic ones (670 on red/670 on green of the 2nd pressing), but I won them both for $4 on a multiple sale ebay auction so whatever. The layout is pretty cool, it folds out and all the band members have their own page.
