Ludichrist Immaculate Deception LP Combat Core 1986 NEAR MINT VINYL

$

20

Ludichrist

Immaculate Deception

Combat Core Records 88561-8133-1 LP 1986 (USA)

Once upon a time, hardcore (punk) and metal were considered separate entities. It did not take long for certain bands that span the spectrum to begin combining elements eventually, harvesting the anger and rebellion of both genres. Venom was one. This is why the first Bathory album sounds like a sibling of The Exploited and Discharge. While in America, DRI and COC began mashing the two styles as well. This spawned bands to incorporate the emergence of thrash and speed metal, loving the ferocity of Metallica, Slayer, Exodus and Testament, into a punk ethos. That inspired one scene to eviscerate all genre limitations, where else but the world’s Capital, home of myriad arts and ethnicities. New York Hardcore saw it in Agnostic Front, Cro-Mags, Carnivore, Leeway, Crumbsuckers, and Ludichrist.

Ludichrist did not take the tight crunch of cleanly produced thrash, just the heaviness and speed. This is a rougher approach, more hardcore. Chuck Valle played bass on this album. Chuck also played in Murphys Law, until losing his life (RIP).

Immaculate Deception’s sound is straight forward and better for it. The defining characteristics of crossover are the time-changes. Most songs are broken into sections; plodding, creepy crawl parts that spur into blistering fast moment. Ludichrist certainly utilize this formula as distinctly and savagely as the first two Suicidal Tendencies’ albums or DRI’s Crossover or COC’s Eye For an Eye.

One aspect kids these days may not quite fathom was the prevalence of Christian authority in the media and life in general. The big televangelists like Swaggart and Robertson and Bakker and the Moral Majority and Tipper Gore’s PMRC all had an intrusive presence swaying parents to fear metal and punk and anything different from the pastoral ideal. If you raised hell, you would prepare to be on Donahue or Sally Jesse. Many of Ludichrist’s lyrics focus on the hypocrisy and evil of these religious stalwarts. The title alone, obviously, speaking on how church (check Anthrax’s “Make Me Laugh” or Suicidal’s “Send Me Your Money”) exploits the guilt and shame of Christians to harvest millions for their own use.

Other subjects include typical eighties’ topics; chemical pollution (AF to DK covered this for fear of Toxic Avenger and C.H.U.D. becoming real!), evil in the world, rebellion against parents and the system, and kicking ass. One song, “Tylenol”, is (obvious to anyone my age) about the Tylenol scare when someone was poisoning tier on shelf bottles. The song takes the viewpoint of the perpetrator; still condemning his sick mind. The thematic “Most People Are Dicks” appears here, encompassing the misanthropy and disillusionment or a scene of outcasts. And while my verbiage may seem to elevate, all these approaches are done in the typical rocking 80’s attitude of casual criticisms. It ain’t cerebral. On “God is Everywhere”, the chorus is “Hey Waiter, there’s a God in my soup!”

The recording is stellar, as conveying an energetic, pissed off, sardonic crew of New Yorkers playing as fast and as loud as they could. By stellar, I do not men “pristine”; I mean accurate to conveying the attitude and music of Ludichrist. There is not a consistent thread necessarily in the music, but the production of Randy Burns (Death, Scream Blood Gore; Possessed, Seven Churches; Megadeth, Peace Sells; Dark Angel, Darkness Descends; Nuclear Assault, Survive) and Ludichrist. Songs like “You Can’t Have Fun” and “Murder Bloody Murder” are simply fast ragers. Other tunes indulge in a noodling intro or slow teaser before jumping in to full blast. “Arms of Christ” is bass focused and a slow stomp, like NYHC was known for (sounds like Murphy’s Law “Cavity Creeps”). The mix is balanced and thick. The drums have the ‘grand’ 80’s sound; guitars are acute on the high notes and chunky on the mid-tempo tracks. The bass has a driving presence; vocals, are in the exact right place, neither pushed nor lost in the mix.

Note the hierarchy of guest appearances with Roger AF, Eddie Leeway, John from Nuclear Assault and Chris Notaro from Crumbsuckers helping out with backing vocals. Al Batross (who came up with the name) was on drums, Joe Butcher on guitars. Chuck on bass. However that line up was overhauled. Tommy Christ remained on vocals with Glen Cummings providing the songwriting and guitars, as they followed up with Powertrip. Powertrip had backing vocals by Death. Yes, that Death. So you can see the transition from NYHC base to a more metal direction.

Tracklist
A1 Fire At The Firehouse
A2 Most People Are Dicks
A3 Murder Bloody Murder
A4 Blown Into The Arms Of Christ
A5 Big Business
A6 Only As Directed
A7 Games Once Played
A8 Green Eggs And Ham
A9 Immaculate Deception
B1 You Can't Have Fun
Guest, Vocals [Special Guest Vocals By] – Chris Notaro, Eddie P. Sutton, John Connelly, Roger Miret
B2 Government Kids
B3 Legal Murder
B4 Down With The Ship
B5 Thinking Of You
B6 Tylenol
B7 Mengele
B8 Young White And Well Behaved
B9 Last Train To Clarksville  Written-By – Hart, Boyce
B10 God Is Everywhere

Recorded At – Platinum Island Studios
Mixed At – Eldorado Recording Studios
Mastered At – Capitol Mastering
Distributed By – Important Record Distributors, Inc.
Published By – Einstein Music
Phonographic Copyright (p) – Relativity Records, Inc.
Copyright (c) – Relativity Records, Inc.

Bass Guitar – Chuck Valle
Coordinator [Project Coordinator] – Joe Leonard, T. Christ
Design [Album], Cover, Illustration – Edward J. Repka
Drums – Al Batross
Engineer [Assistant] – Rich Travali
Executive-Producer – Steve Sinclair
Guitar – Joe Butcher
Lead Guitar, Cover [Concept], Design [Inner Sleeve Collage Photos] – Glen Cummings
Mastered By – Eddy
Mixed By – Casey McMackin
Photography By [Back Cover Photos] – Natalie Colletti
Photography By [Inner Sleeve Collage Photos] – Jeff Scherr, Louise Levine
Producer – Ludichrist
Producer, Engineer, Mixed By – Randy Burns
Vocals, Photography By [Inner Sleeve Collage Photos] – Tommy Christ

Recorded at Platinum Island, New York City.
Mixed at El Dorado, Los Angeles.
Printed inner sleeve with lyrics and band photo collage.

© 1986 Einstein Music.
? © 1986 Relativity Records, Inc.

Vinyl is NEAR MINT in a printed paper liner notes inner sleeve, in a picture sleeve in VERY GOOD condition (edge wear, delete hole punch)

Note About Shipping To The U.S.
We are located in Canada, but have registered ourselves on eBay.com instead of eBay.ca because it gives us significantly better global exposure.  The problem with this is that eBay wants us to charge shipping appropriate to US, where media mail and other options make for fairly reasonable delivery costs. We tried it for a while but ended up losing money on shipping or having to cancel the orders because we couldn't afford to ship for those rates. To manage this we have set the US shipping to run a calculator based on an American location (we chose Plattsburgh as fairly close) and charging according to UPS pricing.  This avoids the cancellation issue, but appears to the buyer to be a prohibitive shipping cost and misrepresents the shipping as being only expedited. If you give us your postal code we will see if we can offer a more reasonable option, but generally we can get a single LP by air to most places in the continental US for $11, a few bucks less for ground.
Thanks for shopping Sir Helmitt,
Jeff Green, e-sales