Record Store Day 2026 preview: Hard rock, punk & metal
Our RSD coverage continues with a look at some of the heavier stuff coming to your local record store on Saturday, April 18. Today we’re previewing the hard rock, punk, and metal vinyl that’s being reissued—or in some cases, released on vinyl for the very first time. We’ll tackle post-punk and indie in the coming weeks, so if the loud-volume thing you’ve been eagerly anticipating isn’t included here, we may have it slotted for a future installment. Or we may have biffed it completely! In which case you are free to write us a sternly worded email.
At any rate, this is the stuff that should irritate your neighbors on the afternoon and evening of Record Store Day, once you tote your scores home with you. Before we get into it, though here’s a quick reminder that our March vinyl giveaway is now live, and it’s a doozy. We are giving away not one but FOUR of the latest Vinylphyle releases from Universal’s premium vinyl reissue line: Erykah Badu’s Mama’s Gun, Peter Frampton’s Frampton Comes Alive!, Heart’s Dreamboat Annie, and Jellyfish’s Spilt Milk. Entering is easy, so just click this handy rectangle to do so.
Ned Lannamann
You will need to be on the paid tier of The Vinyl Cut to be eligible, but this seems like as good a time as any to point out that becoming a paid member isn’t merely an opportunity to win free vinyl, it’s a way to support an independent publication that isn’t beholden to any larger corporation or dependent on ad dollars. What you get from The Vinyl Cut is just the work of two self-employed writers who are in it for the love of music and who really like listening to it on vinyl. Times are tough—and looking to be tougher—so we’re glad we can make a lot of our coverage accessible to anyone interested and not behind a paywall. But if you like what you’ve been reading here and want to consider making The Vinyl Cut part of your entertainment budget, we’d be deeply grateful.
And now with the guilt trip out of the way, let’s get into the RSD slate.
Steve Albini & Zeni Geva: Superunit: Maximum Implosion [Skin Graft]
Musician/recording engineer Steve Albini was a huge fan of Japanese noise-rockers Zeni Geva, working with the band on a number of their studio albums and, in 1992, touring with them as a second guitarist. This two-LP set celebrates this fruitful collaboration by packaging together Nai-Ha, a six-song EP from 1993; two tracks from a so-called Superunit session; and All Right, You Little Bastards, another ’93 release of live recordings from dates in Osaka and Tokyo—all of which feature Albini joining in on guitar. This RSD First release comes on colored wax and includes liner notes from Zeni Geva member Mitsuru Tabata and a poster. RH
Alice Cooper: The Revenge of Alice Cooper [EarMusic]
Keen observers will note that “Alice Cooper” appears under “A” in this alphabetical list and not under “C.” That is because Alice Cooper was originally the name of the band; singer/golfer Vince Furnier only later adopted the name and took it with him on his solo career. That band, formed in Phoenix and then based in Los Angeles and Detroit—where they made their best work with producers Frank Zappa and Bob Ezrin, respectively—broke up in 1974 after reaching the acme of rock success, but the surviving original members reunited for their first album in more than 50 years with last year’s The Revenge of Alice Cooper. This RSD release is just that same album on picture disc and, seeing as how it’s not really much of a reissue, falls outside of the purview of our coverage. The sole purpose of this blurb, then, is to gently remind folks that those first seven fantastic Alice Cooper albums—1969’s Pretties for You up through 1973’s Muscle of Love—are the work of a band and should therefore be filed under “A” in your collection, not “C.” Record-store clerks will be everlastingly grateful if you point this out to them. NL
Bad Brains: Live [Org Music]
The studio albums of Rasta punk quartet Bad Brains are all well and good, but to truly appreciate their power and energy, live recordings are the way to go. One of the best straight shots on the market is Live, a 1988 release made during the group’s tour for their third album I Against I. It’s a ferocious document that combines head-snapping heavy rock with spiritually yearning reggae tunes. This new vinyl edition has been remastered by Dave Gardner of DSG Mastering in LA and includes a live medley of “Day Tripper” and “She’s a Rainbow” that was tacked onto early CD versions. RH
Black Sabbath featuring Tony Iommi: Seventh Star [Rhino]
Once Bill Ward and Geezer Butler left Black Sabbath after the recording and promotion of their 1983 album Born Again, guitarist Tony Iommi set about making his first solo album. With former Deep Purple vocalist Glenn Hughes, drummer Eric Singer, and other hard rockers in the fold, these sessions were heavy on bombastic keyboards, blues riffing, and leaden songwriting. The finished album would eventually be released in early 1986, but, due to pressure from Warner Brothers and manager Don Arden, Seventh Star was billed as Black Sabbath featuring Tony Iommi. This 40th anniversary repressing arrives remastered on black and red splatter vinyl. RH
Flat Duo Jets: Boogie on Your Head! [Propellor Sounds]
North Carolina duo Flat Duo Jets are often touted as the originators of the guitar-drums duo format, which went on to inspire other, more successful bands like the Black Keys and the White Stripes. Jack White in particular cites Flat Duo Jets as a major influence, and guitarist Dexter Romweber’s sound was both a throwback to classic rock ’n’ roll and an expansive, volcanic sound that made the two-piece sound immense. These recordings were made at the same time as Flat Duo Jets’ 1990 self-titled debut album and were first released on Record Store Day in 2017 as part of a box set. Now they’re being released separately on rose-splatter vinyl, with a poster tucked into the sleeve. NL
The Gits: Etcetera [Sub Pop]
Sub Pop continues to celebrate the work of the Gits, the Seattle punk rockers whose early ’90s ascendence came crashing down with the murder of the group’s vocalist Mia Zapata. Etcetera compiles a batch of live material both by the band and Zapata performing solo, a 1992 session recorded for UC Davis radio station KDVS, and a rare B-side from a 1991 7-inch single. Fans of the Gits better be prepared to fight tooth and nail for Etcetera, as Sub Pop is only pressing 1,000 copies of this RSD Exclusive collection. RH
Goatsnake: Dog Days [Southern Lord]
Released in 2000 as a picture disc, Dog Days is a pure hit of doom metal—five melodic heavy rock songs that have the pace and heat of lava flow, lightened just so by the vocals of former Scream/Wool singer Pete Stahl. The material from this EP was eventually tacked onto a 2004 re-release of Goatsnake’s first album I, but is getting a new stand-alone vinyl reissue for Record Store Day complete with new artwork and a previously unreleased track. RH
Johnboy: Pistol Swing & Claim Dedications Discography [Southern Lord]
During their brief existence, noise rock trio Johnboy released a pair of incredible albums for Texas label Trance Syndicate that perfectly captured their unbound energy and keen skill for combining moments of calm and chaos. Southern Lord is picking the baton back up for Record Store Day with a double-LP set that includes nearly everything this group recorded: 1993’s Pistolswing, 1994’s Claim Dedications, and a track from a 1992 7-inch single. All the material has been remixed by Brad Wood, and the very limited set (only 1,000 copies) comes with a booklet featuring copious liner notes and ephemera. RH
Judas Priest: Live in Los Angeles ’90 [Legacy]
In 2021, Judas Priest released 50 Heavy Metal Years of Music, a mammoth 42-CD set that included all of their albums plus a ton of unreleased stuff. One of those unreleased chunks was a live recording of a warm-up show for their upcoming Painkiller tour, recorded on September 13, 1990, in the hotel ballroom at Los Angeles’s Sheraton Plaza La Reina during the Foundations Forum, a music industry convention. So, not exactly the stuff of the common man, but it was drummer Scott Travis’s first live performance with the band, and it was broadcast on the Westwood One radio network, so the show has gone down in Priest lore as a vital document. Now it makes its official debut on vinyl (transparent purple, since you asked), by way of a 10-track LP that includes some new-at-the-time Painkiller songs and a stack of Priest classics, including their accelerated cover of Fleetwood Mac’s “The Green Manalishi.” NL
Lemonheads: Creator [Taang!]
In the years before Evan Dando took the band down an easy-to-swallow alt-pop pathway, Lemonheads were a snotty punk trio from Boston, whipping out short, punchy music barbs about their personal failings. On 1988’s Creator, the group's second full-length, Dando, fellow singer-songwriter Ben Deily, and bassist (and future filmmaker) Jesse Peretz keep the energy high and the spirits light on originals like “Clang Bang Clang” and “Die Right Now,” as well as covers of tunes by Kiss and Charles Manson. This RSD First release arrives in a limited run of 3,000 and features artwork originally used for a 1995 Japanese CD release. RH
Look Outside Your Window: Look Outside Your Window [LOYW]
During the recording sessions for Slipknot’s 2008 album All Hope Is Gone, four members of the nine-piece band—vocalist Corey Taylor, guitarist Jim Root, percussionist Shawn Crahan, and turntablist Sid Wilson—would nip out to a second studio and lay down tracks that were more song- and melody-oriented that Slipknot’s typically aggressive fare. The foursome wanted the the band to include the tracks on All Hope Is Gone but got decided pushback from the other members, which must have been pretty intimidating if they were wearing their spooky clown masks at the time. At any rate, those Slipknot-lite tunes were set aside for many years, but the legend around them has grown in Slipknot fan circles, and now they’re finally being released as Look Outside Your Window. One of the songs, “’Til We Die,” was released as a bonus track on a special edition of All Hope Is Gone, and it's a fairly unremarkable nü-metal ballad, so let’s hope the rest of Look Outside Your Window has a bit more going on. NL
Meshuggah: Destroy Erase Improve; Catch Thirtythree [Reigning Phoenix]
Swedish prog metal outfit Meshuggah are getting a pair of albums reissued on wax for this year’s Record Store Day, both pitched as anniversary releases in spite of missing a nice round number by a year. 1995’s Destroy Erase Improve, the group’s second and best-loved album, set the tone for a chugging, twisting sound that the quintet continues to refine to this day. 2005’s Catch Thirtythree is a 47-minute-long continuous suite of music that, for the first time, made use of programmed drums rather than the nimble playing of founding member Tomas Haake. Both reissues feature newly remastered audio and stretch the music over three sides of vinyl. RH
Misfits: Famous Monsters [Rhino]
The Misfits’ fifth album was last reissued on vinyl by the Dutch label Music on Vinyl in 2018, although a litter of unofficial knockoffs seem to have popped up in its wake, indicating that Misfits fiends are ever-insatiable. Now Rhino is taking the tiller with a presumably legitimate reissue of the 1999 album, the band’s last before the departure of Michale Graves, Dr. Chud, and Doyle Wolfgang von Frankenstein—leading solitary remaining member Jerry Only (aptly named, I guess!) to carry the Misfits torch forward into the 21st century. Famous Monsters won’t ever be mistaken for the Misfits’ finest hour, but like I said, those fiends are insatiable, and the purple and green splatter vinyl matches the album cover’s color scheme. Nifty. NL
Motörhead: On Parole (Steven Wilson Remix) [Rhino]; The Lost Tapes, Vol. 7 [BMG]
Porcupine Tree frontman Steven Wilson has made his bones as remixer-to-the-stars by doing acclaimed audio jobs on the discographies of King Crimson, Yes, Jethro Tull, and other prog titans. So having him re-fiddle the knobs for Motörhead’s earliest recordings seems a little off-piste. On Parole has always had a checkered history, though, so it’s possible its original mix was not done with the greatest of care. It was recorded at the end of 1975 and beginning of 1976 after bassist Lemmy Kilmister was discharged from Hawkwind and featured the first Motörhead lineup of Lemmy, guitarist Larry Wallis, and drummer Lucas Fox; Fox quit midway through the sessions and was replaced by Philthy Animal Taylor, who then redid many of the drum tracks. Nevertheless, the album was rejected by United Artists, which led to Lemmy and Taylor focusing their approach, replacing Wallis with “Fast” Eddie Clarke and tightening their sound to have the impact of a freight train. Once the group had established their success on other labels, On Parole was released by United Artists without the band’s consent in 1979. This black-and-white marbled vinyl LP of the remixed album is a carve-off of a Rhino 3-CD/1 Blu-ray set that comprehensively covers the On Parole sessions. That CD set comes out one day before Record Store Day. Also for Motörhead fans: Their Lost Tapes archival series continues with Volume 7, a live gig recorded at one of Lemmy’s West Hollywood haunts, the Whiskey a Go Go, on December 14, 1995—10 days before the occasion of Messr. Kilmister’s 50th birthday. NL
Rainbow: Live from Köln 1976 [Demon]
By 1976, Rainbow—the project guitarist Richie Blackmore started with vocalist Ronnie James Dio after the dissolution of Deep Purple—had already built a rabid fanbase, both for their two studio albums of bombastic prog-metal and marathon-length gigs that found the group stretching songs nearly to their breaking point with extended solos. Their live bona fides were such that many shows from their ’76 tour of Europe and Japan were recorded for posterity, with tracks cherry-picked for 1977’s On Stage and some of the full performances later issued on CD. One celebrated gig at Kölner Sport Halle in Köln (Cologne), Germany—first released on CD in 2006—is getting an official vinyl issue this Record Store Day. The three-LP set comes on colored wax with audio remastered by heavy rock experts Matt Wortham and Andy Pearce. RH
Ramones: Live in San Francisco [Rhino]
On June 8, 1979, the Ramones—having just wrapped up the protracted recording sessions for their fifth album, End of the Century—played in front of City Hall in San Francisco as part of the Summer in the City music festival. That show was broadcast on the radio, and now it gets its first-ever release on a double LP pressed to pink vinyl. In less than an hour, Joey, Johnny, Dee Dee, and Marky relentlessly rip through more than two dozen blasters, sounding like they’re thrilled to be blowing off steam from the tortuous studio sessions, where producer Phil Spector slowed the band’s working methods to a crawl and reportedly waved more than one gun around. Despite the radio-recording source, sound quality is rarely a concern with the Ramones, and energy-wise, this gig virtually explodes. NL
Sex Pistols: Jubilee [UMR]
Jubilee was first released on CD in 2002 as a singles compilation, gathering up Sex Pistols hits like “Anarchy in the UK,” “God Save the Queen,” “Pretty Vacant,” and their Eddie Cochran covers “Something Else” and “C’mon Everybody.” On the one hand, this is a crucial thumbnail history of one of punk’s most important bands. On the other, it’s a cash-grab rip-off, mostly made up of a bunch of reheated songs that you already own on Never Mind the Bollocks and The Great Rock ’n’ Roll Swindle. In other words, it sums up the Sex Pistols to a T. It comes on pink vinyl, and as an RSD First title, a wider release is in the works. NL
Thin Lizzy: Live in Cleveland 1976 [UMR/Vertigo]
This radio broadcast of Thin Lizzy’s show at the Agora in Cleveland, Ohio, on May 11, 1976, was first released on the excellent 1976 box set that came out in 2024. It finds Phil Lynott & Co. at their absolute zenith, relying heavily on the just-released Jailbreak for much of the setlist. (It’s absolutely mind-boggling to hear Lynott introduce “The Boys Are Back in Town” as their new single.) The radio recording leaves a bit to be desired, but the live firepower of Thin Lizzy absolutely does not. This one comes on transparent vinyl and is an RSD First release, meaning that a wider release is planned at some point. NL
OTHER HARD ROCK, PUNK, AND METAL RELEASES OF NOTE:
Alcatrazz: No Parole from Rock ’n’ Roll [Culture Factory]
Against Me!: New Wave B-Sides [Rhino]
Babymetal: Live from the O2 - Highlights [Capitol]
Bring Me the Horizon: Lo-files [Columbia]
The Cult: Weapon of Choice [Cooking Vinyl]
The Darkness: One Way Ticket to Birmingham (Live at the NEC) [Rhino]
Deafheaven: KEXP Sessions [Roadrunner]
Def Leppard: Slang [UMR/Mercury]
Dropkick Murphys/The Outlets: “Knock Me Down” 7-inch [Taang!]
Fear Factory: Digimortal [Real Gone Music]
Kiss: A Special Kiss Tour Album [Mercury]
Bruce Kulick: Transformer [Culture Factory]
Lunachicks: We Can Be Worster [Manic Merch]
Megadeth: Hidden Treasures [Capitol/UMe]
The Meteors: From Zorch with Love: The Very Best of the Meteors 1981–1997 [Culture Factory]
Mötley Crüe: Live Wire EP [BMG]
Motörhead: The Lost Tapes, Vol. 7 [BMG]
Puscifer: Normal Isn’t [BMG]
Michael Schenker Group: Best of Live 1980-1984 [Chrysalis]
The Sword: Three Songs [Kemado]
Van Halen: Live in New Haven, CT 1986 [Rhino]
