FINAL CONFLICT - Ashes To Ashes LP 1987 Rare Original KBD Punk Discharge MDC

$

30

Vinyl Condition: NM barely ever played 
Cover Condition: VG++ almost no ring wear, still very glossy. The corners edges are very square. No creases or seam splits.
Lyric sheet / dust sleeve is in great condition with sharp corners, no visual ring wear and slight creases. Comes with a 16 page booklet that describes the bands beliefs and looks brand new, with sharp corners and no creases.
Rare 1st pressing of this 14-song punk rock LP from Long Beach, CA on Pusmort Records.
Final Conflict is a hardcore punk band from Long Beach, California founded in 1983 by guitarist Jeff Harp. Musically Final Conflict are equal parts Discharge/Crucifix meets Black Sabbath and Motorhead. In the early 80's the band's original demo tape was a favorite amongst tape traders, with not just punks but metalheads making them one of the first bands to be part of the genre called "crossover". Due to lack of touring the band never really achieved status like their peers.
Final Conflict is regarded as one of the first extreme hardcore punk bands from the Los Angeles/Orange County area. They incorporated a British-style hardcore punk rock at a time when the punk rock scene was at its weakest popularity. Their perseverance and dedicated fan base helped spark a Los Angeles and Orange County punk rock revival of sorts during the late 1980s and early 1990s.
From pitchfork.com
On any given weekend in the 1980’s, a hardcore turf war threatened to swallow Fenders Ballroom whole. In this cramped shrine, tucked away inside Long Beach’s historic Lafayette hotel, hordes of young people moshed en masse to the likes of Black Flag and Agent Orange. The music was pulverizing, to be sure, but there was much more danger to be found simply by looking around the room. The Suicidals, the South Bay Skins, FFF, Circle One: according to those who were there, these and other rival punk gangs were known to sulk about the space, doling out bloody noses and beat-downs as they saw fit. Muggings and stabbings were not uncommon, nor was the prospect of going to see Bad Brains only to get your brains bashed out.
And yet, even as violence threatened to tear the place apart,  the true fury and fervor of Los Angeles' punk scene resided, ironically enough, in the music of peacenik bands like Final Conflict, who were among the first to successfully augment the crude power of hardcore with sleek, sophisticated musicianship. Formed by guitarist and principal songwriter Jeff Harp in 1983, the Long Beach quartet enlisted elements of thrash, black metal, and d-beat to lend their minute-long manifestoes an essential, acrid urgency. In 1987, they released their pulverizing debut album, Ashes to Ashes – a venom-soaked takedown of the Reagan years, as well as one of the decade's best crossover releases.
During the height of the Orange County hardcore scene, bands' lists of influencers typically included their fellow Californians, along with NYC acts like Reagan Youth  Final Conflict's palette, on the other hand, combined the fever-pitch intensity of  UK crust-punk pioneers like Discharge and Amebix with the grizzled black metal of Crucifix. The ramped-up intensity and increased emphasis on technically-proficient solos enabled the band to carve out a newer, more brutal niche from the existing framework, lying somewhere between thrash's reptile-brain party mode and the tempered rage of heavy metal.
As the cover art suggests, the hand of the doomsday clock sits dangerously close to midnight for the entirety of Ashes to Ashes. Corrupt cops, rainforest-gutting corporations, the Reagan administration, the atomic bomb: disturbing images abound on the record, often sketched in excruciating detail. On “Constant Fear”, Martinez describes man’s annihilation by nuclear warhead through the sensuous image of “smoldering flesh underneath crumbling structures.” Elsewhere, “Abolish Police” and  “Self-Righteous Pigs” plaster the walls with grotesques of authority figures “playing hero” with civilian lives. The band even takes part in a little aural graffiti for the album’s closer, tearing down a sample of Reagan on the campaign trail with an instrumental sucker-punch.

I will include insurance as part of the shipping cost to protect us both. I use lots of packing material, record shipping boxes with 2 cardboard inserts for the top and bottom and bubble wrap for added protection. I ship the record outside of the album cover to prevent seam splits and put them both inside a poly record sleeve.
All records are from my private collection, carefully stored for 30+ years, never left outside of their record sleeves unless it was on the turntable with the dustcover closed. Most of my records were only listened to once or twice, enough for me to record them to cassette tape so I could listen to them in the car at the time.
Please follow my other auctions, as I will be listing a lot of classic punk rock LPs and EPs in the near future.

MINT (M): Perfect! This record looks like it has just left the manufacturer, with NO flaws what so ever. It looks as though it had never been handled. No scuffs or scratches, blotches or stains. No stickers address labels, writing on the covers or labels. No tears or seam splits. No wear to the cover or record period! Age of the record has nothing to do with it.

NEAR MINT or NM, M-: this record appears virtually flawless A very minor scuff and very little else can appear on the vinyl. It should play without any noise over the flaw. The flaw is very hard to see. The cover looks as close to perfect with only minor signs of wear and or age. Minor impressions to the cover (due to the outer edge of the vinyl resting inside) may be acceptable, however the artwork is be as close to perfect as can be.

EXCELLENT or EX or VG++ : minor scuffs which are only slightly visible. There may be more than a few scuffs and NO Scratches COVER: Artwork is still as close to perfect as can be. Some impression to the cover (minor outer ring wear) but no ink wear! Some slight creases to the corners, but not wrinkled and obtrusive to the eye. The corners can show white, meaning slight wear. No seam splits or writing on the cover or taped repairs can make this grade.

VERY GOOD PLUS or VG+: record shows wear, surface scuffs. The vinyl still has a great luster, but the flaws will be noticeable to the naked eye. If the flaws don't cause any surface noise, the vinyl can still make the VG+ grade. COVERS: A virtually clean cover, but may have small writing on it.The artwork looks clean with slightly more aging. The back of the cover usually gives away the age of the cover. Flat white paper will be somewhat yellow yet no stains or mildew from water damage. Some minor wear to the seams or spine, but no tears or holes popping through. The corners will be slightly dog eared yet no crackly bends, defacing the artwork. In essence, a VG+ cover should have no more than 3 flaws mentioned.

VERY GOOD or VG: this record is a record that is good enough. They are not really going to look very good, but it will STILL play very good. there will almost always be some surface noise when they are played. The Dynamics should still be excellent, overpowering the surface noise. A VG record will appear well have been played but still have some luster. VG covers will look worn, used. There may be some seam splitting. There will be some ring wear, where the ink has begun to wear off. Giving the cover a look of snow falling. If the artwork looks snowy all over, it is less than VG condition. There may be some writing on the cover (still, no Large letters in magic marker). It will look aged and more yellowish due to contamination's in the air (sometimes looking like cigarette smoke). Still it should be decent.

GOOD or G: A good record will look very well played, dull, grayish and possibly abused. However a Good record should still play. It will have distracting surface noise. Such as crackle that is continuous or some hiss. Will also have some loss of dynamics caused from grooves being worn. It should play without any skips or any obtrusively loud pops or repeated clicks, caused by deep scratches. Good means that it will play with some form of decency, so one can still enjoy the music even though you can still hear noise caused from the wear. A Good cover will have just about everything wrong with it. It will have seam splits (possibly taped repaired, but only with scotch tape. No duct tape or masking tape repairs. These are big turn offs. May have magic marker writing on the cover but still if they are in huge letters, it is a big turn off.In essence, the cover will looked virtually trashed, but some artwork will still be noticed. If the artwork is worn, it is POOR and the cover is worthless.