Records With History And Future

The ‘Euridium’ release of Congress was groundbreaking. There was no school in K-Town (Kortrijk) where there were school kids that weren’t into Congress. Every K-town school had kids that were into Congress at that time. At least that is what someone of my age and from the area told me during an interview. It spread further over the years with the ‘Blackened Persistance’ release and peaked internationally with ‘Angry With The Sun’. There was no popular press, radio or television that helped spread the word. So almost everything was passed over on shows, verbally under friends, zines and distribution of records. That has always been the case with Hardcore before the internet era was here.

I picked in on the spread during the ‘Blackened Persistance’ phase. So this release was silently waiting to be discovered later. There is so much global truth in the lyrics although they might seem personal at first. With the music they had taken the first steps into the Metal and Hardcore blend. Edge-Metal was born with this release, after the embryonic phase Edge-Metal had in Wheel Of Progress.

Congress ‘Euridium’ 7 inch on Warehouse Records

Congress ‘Euridium’ 7 inch on black vinyl (first press)

There’s still a lot of work to do concerning the documentation of the band and their discography. General consensus is that this black version is the first press, of which copies were used to make a record release version. And that there is a solid red also as limited color. The masses say that the purple was second press out of 1000 copies and brown was third press out of 1000 copies also. As a critical side reflection I need to say that it’s nearly impossible in Belgium to press and sell all of these copies (summation 2500 – 3000 copies) in one year. That is impossible despite how popular the band was at the moment. Add to this that there were also CD versions pressed and sold out. So I argue Discogs.com and everybody who says this. And we need to know in what year these three pressings were done exactly.

I am well on track in upgrading my collection with some essential H8000 Hardcore records. To find a first press of the Euridium might not be that hard at all, but to find perfect condition copies is quite another task. Depends on what you have for standards in mind for sure. I found this copy on Discogs.com but I need to say that using this site as a reliable source is stupid. The database is far from completely reliable and who can blame people for not making it reliable. There are years and years of research and then you just put your work on someone else site. Where you can’t control it anymore. If one day Discogs.com pulls the plug it’s all gone. So if we succeed to publish things in a book that would be a great achievement.