News

We’re back with another report on the latest titles to hit the pre-order section of the website.

Converge recently announced their second new album of 2026. It’s called Hum of Hurtand we have it in red/yellow and indie exclusive “fist in the gold” color versions. NOFX’s skewering of then-President Bush on War on Errorism is also back in print… it seems so quaint considering the fresh horrors we face these days. The two albums that were Megadeth’s commercial peak, Countdown to Extinction and Youthanasia have new pressings, the first time in a long while these two titles have been available in non-picture disc versions. And Jungle Records brings us a new singles compilation from anarcho legends Conflict.

State of the Art is a pretty cool-looking compilation of US punk and new wave. I’m not sure who curated it, but the track listing looks very interesting, with a mix of KBD obscurities I know (Hugh Beaumont Experience, Rock Bottom & the Spys, and Non Compos Mentis), alongside a much longer list of obscurities I know nothing about. That’s a comp I can get into.

It’s a good week for shoegaze as the comeback album from Failure is coming out soon and nearly the whole catalog from Whirr has fresh colored vinyl pressings.

I know the punks love Memphis rap, so you might be interested in this double LP of early Triple Six Mafia originally released between 1991 and 1994.

As I said last time, I like to point your attention to noteworthy jazz reissues, and I’d say this reissue of Miles Davis’s legendary Birth of the Cool on Blue Note’s Tone Poet series qualifies. I have a few Tone Poet editions, and they are among the most beautiful and best-sounding records in my collection. I don’t own a copy of Birth of the Cool on vinyl, so I’m going to grab one of these for myself. And if you’re looking for something a little more out-there, Coltrane’s Impressions also has a new pressing on Verve’s Acoustic Sounds series.

There’s lots more in the pre-orders section from John Spencer, Sparta, the Rapture, Earth Crisis, Floating Points, Cannibal Corpse, and many more!

Just a quick note to inform you two of our biggest recent pre-orders, the Bikini Mutantsreissue on Sealed Records and the new Powerplant album Bridge of Sacrifice are both shipping now! The warehouse is slammed at the moment with all the orders from the sale and these two large pre-orders coming in, but we’re nearly caught up, so future orders for these titles should ship pretty much immediately.

Photo: Daniel, Seth, and Osamu (RIP) building fixtures before the store opened, fall 2013.

Before we get into the usual newsletter bits, I have something I wanted to talk to you about. The short version is that Sorry State is buying the space that houses our shop! This is kind of unexpected but very exciting and also extremely overwhelming and stressful. We could really use your help coming up with the cash for the down payment, so we’re having a big sale to generate some funds.

Now for the longer version:

A few months ago, Sorry State’s landlord informed us they had decided to sell the property that houses our downtown Raleigh shop. Sorry State has been in our current location since we opened in 2013—13 years!—and we really did not want to move. While I haven’t mentioned it to anyone but the people who work here and a few close friends, Sorry State’s future has felt pretty up in the air for the past few months. The landlord put our space on the market at the beginning of the year, so we’ve had potential buyers coming in for viewings for the last few months. That’s been enormously stressful, watching strangers poke around our closets and cabinets while our future hangs in the balance. No one who viewed the space seemed interested in providing cheap rent to a punk record shop, so I assumed we’d be facing either a huge rent increase or eviction. However, after a lot of ulcer-inducing back-and-forth, Sorry State is now under contract to purchase our space! (To be clear, we’re just talking about our retail space—the shop floor and our small back room—not the whole building.) I probably don’t need to tell you this is huge for us. Sorry State will have a permanent home, and we’ll gain many of the benefits homeowners enjoy, most importantly a monthly payment that isn’t subject to the whims of the market. We hope to continue doing Sorry State for many years to come, and owning our space will go a long way toward making that a reality.

Now that we’re under contract, our next hurdle is coming up with the money for the down payment. This is a huge amount of money for us. The down payment is equivalent to over TWENTY times our monthly rent. It’s not an insurmountable obstacle, but it’s a lot… especially at this time of year, when sales are typically slower and Record Store Day bills are starting to arrive. Of course, I’ll be emptying my meagre savings account and looking under every couch cushion in the vicinity, but those things alone won’t get us over the finish line.

We’re not asking for a handout… this isn’t a matter of life and death, and we wouldn’t want to take money or attention from charitable endeavors that need it. But, at the same time, we could really use your business right now. If you’ve been thinking about buying some records, we’d love it if you did that pretty soon! If there’s a recent release you’ve been meaning to pick up, a classic you don’t already own, or if you just wanna splurge… anything you could do would be awesome! Even if you only have a few bucks, you can always pick up some cheap new-to-you music in our clearance and used sections. We also have gift cards if you want to treat a friend or save your record splurge for later. Every dollar you spend with us moves us toward our goal.

We have a couple of enticements for you, too! First, today we’re launching a pre-order for the Shaved Ape LP on Sorry State, which we know a lot of you are going to want. Second, we have some discount codes for you. If you spend $100 or more, enter NOLANDLORDS to get 15% off your order. If you really want to put a dent in our down payment, spend $300 or more and enter NOMASTERS to get 25% off your entire order! (Note: gift cards ARE eligible for the discount.) If you’re local, we’re doing the same deal on everything in the shop. Both deals will last through this weekend, April 5.

Even if you can’t help right now, I want to thank everyone for your support over the years. Sorry State wouldn’t be here without our employees, customers, vendors, bands, and everyone else in our community. Thanks so much for all you’ve done and continue to do to keep us going.

Now, on to the newsletter…

Read the full newsletter here!

Sorry State's newest release is up for pre-order! Shaved Ape's Loveletter to Hardcore comes out on April 22. Right now you can hear the title track on Sorry State's Bandcamp and pre-order it from us on standard black or limited opaque turquoise vinyl. Here's the full description:

Shaved Ape delivers the follow-up to their much-loved 2022 demo cassette with Loveletter to Hardcore, five more blistering tracks of ultra-fast, ultra-mean, ultra-lean hardcore punk. The m.o. remains exactly the same as the demo: Vince takes a lifetime of frustration, angst, and energy and channels it straight into a cassette four-track machine, leaning on his decades of experience as one of hardcore’s best drummers (see his work in White Stains, Loose Nukes, and Sickoids), a drummer’s ear for a straightforward but effective riff, and a voice hell-bent on exorcising some demons. And since the first tape never got the vinyl treatment, we put those songs on the b-side, giving you a full LP (OK, 45RPM 12”…) of white-hot hardcore punk, wrapped in a swoon-worthy sleeve featuring a vintage Chuck Hults photo of young Riky Barnes ripping it up.

Hello and welcome to another edition of the Sorry State Records newsletter! Let’s start this week’s issue by wishing my dog Patti a happy 5th birthday!

My wife is at a ceramics conference in Detroit this week and I couldn’t bear to leave my little girl home alone on her birthday, so she’s hanging out at the SSR warehouse today, which I think everyone loves. Hopefully I can get this week’s newsletter out relatively quickly so I can hit the pet store before it closes and get her a big ‘ol bully stick and some freeze-dried chicken so she can celebrate her big day in style.

As for the world of recorded music, this week we once again have three hardcore rippers for our featured releases. What can I say? I like the stuff. And two of the three are from our neighbors just up the road in Richmond, where you can find one of the biggest and most vibrant punk scenes in the world. Though we currently have an epically long list of packages we’re expecting, our mail carrier’s loads have been light this week, so there isn’t a ton in the new arrivals section. But we make up for that with news on the next Sorry State release (the long-awaited return of Shaved Ape!), a new pre-order from Choncy on Feel It Records, a fresh round of pre-orders, and similarly fresh new batch of staff picks covering, as usual, a very broad range of music. We also have a first this week, with a staff member’s spouse taking over their pick… thanks so much to Danny’s wife Molly for her contribution! The whole of this week’s issue is well worth a read, if I say so myself.

So let’s get to it!

Read the full newsletter here!

The test press for SHAVED APE's forthcoming 12" has been approved This release features 5 new straight-up ripping tracks on the A, with their sold-out demo cassette tracks on the B side for good measure. If you haven't heard SHAVED APE yet, you can stream the demo on our bandcamp page while you get stoked for their follow-up! We'll be rolling this bad body out very soon, so keep an eye on our social media and the Sorry State newsletter.

Time for another update on new titles to hit the pre-orders section of the Sorry State website! As usual, we’ll only touch on a small selection of the new items that went up recently, so check the site for all 300+ current preorders!

Heading up the new releases this week is the new album from Darkthrone! We have their new album Pre-Historical Metal available on three colors: black, transparent orange, or coke bottle green (which is the indie exclusive). Revelation Records brings us the debut from Birdlegs, a new punk supergroup drawing members from AFI and the Nerve Agents, among others. Next up is the new album from Sunn O))), who have made the jump to indie stalwarts Sub Pop for this latest self-titled album. We also have the new double album—their fourth—from long-running indie group American Football on goldenrod mixor red tape vinyl. One of Dominic’s faves, Wales’ Super Fury Animals have a new early rarities and demos collection called (appropriately) Precreation Percolation. And I didn’t even know they were still active, but we also have a new album from indie / post-punk darlings Downtown Boys called Public Luxury. And last but certainly not least, Japanese garage legends Guitar Wolf have a new album called More Jet.

As usual, there’s lots to talk about in the new reissue department too. Leading the charge are the Butthole Surfers, which is only kinda-sorta a reissue… After the Astronaut was meant to be the follow-up album to their 1996 surprise hit Electriclarryland, but was shelved due to disputes between the band and their label. Now it’s finally coming out and you can get it from us on standard black or indie exclusive opaque white vinyl. 70s French punk group Guilty Razors have a new collection LP bringing together their full discography (which was just one LP and one 7” single), and we also have a collection LP from early Seattle post-punk group Chinas Comidas… I’ve always picked up their records on the rare occasions when I find them, so it’ll be nice to have them all in one place.

On the heavier end of the reissue spectrum, I’m pretty interested in this reissue on Tee Pee Records from obscure Nova Scotia 80s thrash band Schizoid… I haven’t heard it, but it looks very promising! Slowing things down a bit (OK, a lot…), Sub Pop is repressing Earth’s long out of print third album Pentastar: In The Style Of Demons. Purveyors of killer sub-underground psych and heavy rock reissues Ancient Grease Records have a collection LP from obscurities Punch, who only released a single back in the day. Real Gone Music’s Deicide reissue campaign continues with 1995’s Once Upon the Cross, while Peaceville brings another early Sigh record back into print with 1997’s Ghastly Funeral Theatre. Oh, and if you were waiting for the Danzig reissue mania to spread to Danzig 4… boom, we got you.

Finishing up on the poppier end of things, 00s indie / post-hardcore darlings Piebald take the next step in their reunion journey with their first post-breakup album of new material. It’s called Tales for the Rages and we have it on hot pink or strange purple vinyl. Kasey Musgraves has a new album coming out called Middle of Nowhere and we have that on two colors as well: whiskey or rodeo clown. Foo Fighters have a new album up for pre-order, and I guess old Dave is gonna compete for your dollars with his own daughter Violet, whose debut Be Sweet to Me is available on black or blueberry jam vinyl. And finishing things off, Death Cab for Cutie have a brand new album called I Built You a Tower coming out on Anti Records.

Hi there and welcome to another edition of the Sorry State Records newsletter! I hope everyone is doing well. We’re chilling here, dealing with the crazy weather we get in the springtime here in Raleigh. I love that this week our featured releases are three scorching new hardcore punk 7”s… it doesn’t get much better than that! And there’s plenty more to tell you about besides, including some cool new arrivals, a fresh batch of staff picks, and the usual stuff we flood your inbox with (most) every week. So, without further ado…

Read the full newsletter here.

We’re here once again with a report on all the latest titles to hit the pre-orders section of the Sorry State site.

We have a few new punk and adjacent titles up this week. First up is a reissue of Ghost Ship, the first full-length by John Reis’s group Sultans, originally released in 2000 during a Rocket from the Crypt hiatus and out of print since that original pressing. Next we have a new pressing of the Heartbreakers’ L.A.M.F.: The Found '77 Masters LP, which presents improved versions of the notoriously muddy mix on the Heartbreakers’ iconic debut album. A banger from my high school days, the Suicide Machines’ Destruction by Definition gets a new RSD Essentials pressing that’ll have you skanking it up all across your living room, and the ska party continues with reissues of Less than Jake’s Goodbye Blue and White and GNV FLA LPs. Thee Headcoatees’ first album, 1991’s Girlsville has a new pressing from Damaged Goods. Oh, and it looks like the two recently-released new Sugar songs are being compiled on a new 7”, the band’s first new release in a few decades.

There’s a little bit of new metal (but not really nü metal) up for pre-order this week. Isis’s In the Absence of Truth and Wavering Radiant LPs both have new double LP pressings on Ipecac Records. I’m not sure who’s in Sepultura nowadays, but whoever they are, they have a new EP called Cloud of Unknowing that you can order now. Belphegor’s 2006 album Pestapocalypse Vi has a new pressing, or if you’re looking for something on the lighter side, Winger’s self-titled has a new pressing.

I’m sure some of you have a soft spot for this one: Insane Clown Posse’s The Great Milenko is being repressed in an RSD Essentials edition. Shoutout to my roommate from my first apartment, who introduced me to the ways of the juggalo way back in 1998. Dude was way ahead of the curve.

North Carolina native J. Cole’s new one is a monstrous quadruple LP… we probably won’t bring these in as a non-preorder, so if you want to get it from us, grab that pre-order!

We’ve been doing pre-orders for some classic jazz albums… I try to be selective about the jazz I put up in the pre-orders section, focusing on classic titles that are part of high-quality reissue series like Blue Note’s Tone Poet and Verve’s Acoustic Sounds series. Along those lines, one of my all-time jazz favorites—Coltrane’s Africa / Brass— has a new pressing on the Acoustic Sounds series. We also have new reissues of Dexter Gordon’s Dexter Calling, Art Blakey & the Jazz Messengers’ Buttercorn Lady and ’s Make It, and Lee Morgan’s first album Introducing Lee Morgan.

There’s plenty more on the pre-orders section of the website, where we have almost 300 items available for you to pre-order.

Hi there and welcome to another edition of the Sorry State newsletter! Last week was a little thin, but this week we’re making up for it with a 7,000+ word monster that includes a full slate of staff picks, a killer batch of featured releases, and a ton of new releases and restocks to tell you about. Since the body of this week’s newsletter is so thicc, I’ll keep the preamble short and we’ll get right to it.

Read the full newsletter here.

Just a quick note to let you know the latest two releases on Roachleg Records—Pura Manía’s new LP La Banda Es La Ley and Cross’s new LP Human Spirit are officially out now! We’ve shipped out all your preorders and both records are now streaming in full on the Roachleg Bandcamp site. Give ‘em a listen, and if you are moved to order the vinyl your order will ship right away.

A fresh round of preorders just hit the preorders section of the website! Reminder that we currently have about 300 preorders going, so there isn’t space to touch base about everything here. Thus, it’s always worth having a look through that section of the site, as most of what’s there isn’t mentioned here at all, and that includes a lot of good stuff!

First up this week, we have a pre-order for the new Social Distortion album! We have this one available in regular black vinyl or the indie exclusive version with an extra print of the (…) cover art and pretty nice-looking color vinyl that matches the cover’s color scheme. Make fun of my Von Dutch cap all you want… Social Distortion slaps!

Next up we have three classics from the Cramps: Songs the Lord Taught Us, Psychedelic Jungle, and Bad Music for Bad People. We briefly had represses of Songs the Lord Taught Us and Psychedelic Jungle a few weeks ago, but those sold out instantly. And Bad Music for Bad People was recently an RSD Exclusives issue (in fact, the preorder for that is still going), but this is a standard version on regular black vinyl.

We also have newly announced standard versions of Danzig I and Danzig II: Lucifuge, and even better these versions are slightly cheaper than their RSD Essentials counterparts (which, admittedly, will almost certainly feature nicer packaging). And even better than that, this batch also includes Danzig III: How the Gods Kill, the essential 3rd album that hasn’t been officially available on vinyl in many, many years.

Also now out for wider release is the legendary Buckingham Nicks album, which got reissued a few months ago in a slew of different fancy versions, but this one is a standard edition on black vinyl.

Punkers, there’s a lot more for you this week. The Descendents’ Cool to Be You is getting a new issue on Fat Wreck Chords. Amyl & the Sniffers’ early material gets a new pressing with fresh cover artwork after being out of print (and very collectible!) for many years. Red Scare brings us the first-ever repressing of American Steel’s first album. I was a huge fan of this record when it came out, and the vinyl has always been a tough grip, insanely collectible and pricey basically since it was released. The 1986 mix of the Cure’s “Boys Don’t Cry” is coming out as a 12” single, Frontier Records brings us a collection LP from early 80s SoCal punk/power-poppers Flyboys, and Face to Face’s Live LP gets a 35th anniversary pressing.

In the metal department, we have a new one from At the Gates available on black, opaque gray, or tranparent sea blue vinyl. The new Nunslaughter album, Satanic Chaos Legions, is also available in multiple versions, with red and orange options (like hell… hell yeah). Arcturus’s first album Aspera Hiems Symfonia, as does the Danish thrash classic Witch Cross’s Fit for Fight. We also have a handful of reissues from Canadian speed metal band Razor: Shotgun Justice, Violent Restitution, and Open Hostility.

Finally, in the worlds of pop and rock, two of Ween’s most loved (and collectible!) albums: Quebec and White Pepper are getting repressed. Franz Ferdinand’s modern indie classic You Could Have It So Much Better gets a new reissue. Foo Fighters have a new album out and we have standard and indie exclusive red vinyl versions. Charley Crockett has a new album and you can get that in standard or indie exclusive versions, the latter of which is on white vinyl and has different cover art. Guided by Voices have a new album out, their 437th, and it’s called Crawlspace of the Pantheon. And the Zombies Begin Herehas a new mono pressing and—just like the Foo Fighters and Charley Crockett!—it’s available in black and indie exclusive clear vinyl versions… in case you only listen to the Zombies on color vinyl.

As I said, there’s a lot more than that, so keep an eye on the pre-orders section for the full scoop!