I have contacted Earache about this. I did get a receipt via e-mail, but not in the packaging. I haven't gotten any response (yet). Hopefully I will soon.

is it really that much better to order from the actual label? I usually just buy off amazon or ebay

Only fascists buy music from Amazon.

I actually had a good experience with Earache. I thought my copy of From Enslavement To Obliteration that I ordered got lost in the mail so they sent me another one free of charge. But then I eventually had two copies, and they were willing to pay for the shipping of the return.

Napalm records is a quite reliable label, I used to buy many cds in the past and they always did a great work.

Do not purchase from Amazon unless you like to get warped vinyl, also support labels/2nd hand stores, they are people who actually put effort into music.

Best large distros in the U.S. from my experience - Nuclear War Now, Dark Descent, Hells Headbangers

Great labels, some with good distro selection - Caligari (get all yer tapes here), Fallen Empire, The Crypt, Buried by Time and Dust, High Roller, Iron Pegasus, Iron Bonehead, Terratur Possessions, Heavy Chains, Darker Than Black, Ajna, Darkness Attack, Van, Soulseller, F.O.A.D, Svart, etc

Obviously missing many others but those are the ones on my mind, support real labels!

I actually don't find myself buying physical copies of music on Amazon that much these days. The most I've bought recently were mp3s of albums that either don't have CD releases or do have CD releases and nobody's selling a copy on Discogs.

I don't really prefer any one kind of major/independent distro, it pretty much depends on which one I decide to check out. Whether it be Hells Headbangers, Shadow King, Dark Descent, Earache, Metal Blade, etc. etc. I haven't had any negative experience with anyone so far.

I've been using Discogs more than anything lately, they're very helpful for finding specific copies of albums so long as someone's selling a copy (because I'm just that picky sometimes). Only downside is I don't come across bargains that often on Discogs, since most of the people selling stuff there seem to know how sought after or rare their CD is.

-> viewtopic.php?f=22&t=40274

thought I'd repost because my list was buried somewhere in the thread:

antihumanism/belgium - ripped me off once, not cooperative at all, avoid!
drakkar - ripped me off once, avoid. word is their distro is handled by someone else nowadays
raging bloodlust/germany - reliable in a small 1-disc-order
werewolf promotion - HUGE tape selection, extremely reliable in orders and trades, highly recommended
red stream - highly recommended all around
planet metal - highly reliable in trades
cw productions - recommended all around.
the way of force - one of the best around, highly recommended for UG black metal.
no colours - always been reliable in my book, but problems in packing and communication if you don't speak german
total holocaust/sweden - reliable in trade
sathanas distribution/norway - reliable in trade
northern heritage/finland - highly reliable
darkness shade/UK - reliable in trade
akousmatiskoi underground/UK - reliable in trade
undercover records/germany very reliable german UG mailorder
ancient darkness/denmark - reliable in a 1-disc-order
heidens hart/Netherlands!!!! - one of the best around, highly recommended. great selection and attitude.
strong survive/canada - highly recommended in trade.
deviant records/germany - nice output and reliable in small orders
hexencave/slowenia !!!! - extremely reliable in trade and orders, low prices, highly recommended!
firebox/finland - reliable in a small 1-disc-order
non compos mentis/USA !!!! - huge selection, extremely reliable, highly recommended
true face of evil/germany - very reliable in trade, still around?
eternity records/germany!!! - very reliable german BM mairorder
tanhu records
truelove enter-/antitainment/germany - extremely reliable, still around?
descending towards damnation/finland-extremely recommended all around.
breath of pestilence/finland -
darg/poland - extremely reliable, still around?
eclipse of live promulgation/germany!!!! - great german ug distro with a great selection and reliable attitude. low prices also.
kyrck/greece - great releases of norwegian BM and extremely reliable
napalm records/austria - reliable in a small 1-disc-order
infernus rex/netherlands - very reliable in orders and trades
autopsy stench/germany - reliable in a small 1-disc-order
black bunker/germany - extremely reliable despite a small selection

I used to always buy physical copies, but Ive only had maybe a handful of not so good experiences, mainly due to shipping:
Earache was late with shipping Stench of Redemption. Seems they shipped it on the release date and not before, to actually get it on the release date. On a side note, Im really surprised they havent gone under yet, as I dont even know any bands that are still there.
Metal Blade took forever to ship Centuries of Torment.
Now when I buy music, I tend to get the mp3's from amazon when there's a sale.

I've only ever ordered vinyl from Amazon once (for two records) but the packaging they used was more than satisfactory, it was so sturdy and well-protected that it was hard to open.

I generally order CD's from Amazon, though, since I have Amazon Prime. The only bad experience I had was once when I ordered Morgoth - "Resurrection Absurd/The Eternal Fall", I thought I would be getting the Century Media re-issue (I'm a huge fan of the 2006 reissues they did) but when it came in the mail it was the Icarus Music pressing (:puke:), they've always felt very low quality to me, I can't explain what it is exactly.

Also, my mom ordered me "Embalmed Existence" by Resurrection from Amazon one year and when it turned up it was a shitty version that Amazon had made themselves. CD-r (so it wouldn't even play in my CD player...d'oh!), and had no layout or anything, just the album cover with a blue/black border surrounding it, and with a tiny print of the album cover on the disc.

Assuming a band's homepage counts as a music site - I bought a tshirt from the Negura Bunget site in October 2013. I got it...in July 2014. Also it was a completely different shirt design. Kept it since I liked it anyway, but you'd think whoever is in charge of NB's merch sales could have at least responded to the two emails I sent over the six months and/or told me the design I ordered was unavailable.

Here you go: viewtopic.php?p=1504847#p1504847

I've bought over 100 vinyls off of Amazon and never once gotten a warped vinyl. If I did they are extremely easy to deal with in regards to returns. It's easy to find what you want immediately and it gets here in 2 days considering I have Amazon Prime.

I preorder vinyl a lot though so that's not to say I don't buy from other sources. Though I rarely have a good experience with the whole "get it on or near the release date" thing. Perhaps related to me being from Canada.

This is a pretty brief 'story,' but every time I've ordered a jewel case CD released on Season of Mist, it's had a massive obnoxious sticker on the case essentially advertising the CD I've already bought. They're impossible to peel off and leave a massive patch of glue on the case even in success.

Ah, forgot about the worst one of all! CorpseClothing! Dropped $52 on shirts there in 2013, nothing showed up, did some research a year later and the entire fucking company went insolvent and I'm probably never getting my money back. Dandy.

I guess the shitty service reviews everywhere else prior to their insolvency should have tipped me off...

I've ordered five or six vinyls (from amazon, years ago) and all of them came warped, I know it is because of the way amazon stores their stuff probably in a hot warehouse and then they ship them in these tiny cardboard mailers, I have never had problems with any real distros who usually ship stuff in a double box. Yes its nice saving money on prime shipping but shelling out a couple bucks to support the community is more than worth it for me... The distro/label owners and employees put a lot of hard work into what they do and have been around far longer than amazon prime. It is the same reason I wont buy anything from starbucks, yes they are more convenient but I dont want to only be able to buy stuff from starbucks, what a soulless place we would live in.

actually just came across this... http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?i ... 1000733581 so I guess they finally learned how to handle vinyl, hopefully they stopped storing them in the sun as well.

A couple years ago I bought digital versions of two albums from High Two (label) but there was some bug in the system and the download links were never emailed to me. I emailed the label and the owner replied and was easy to communicate with. He confirmed there was a bug but he was away from his computer for the weekend, so he put the albums on dropbox for me when he got home and included two extra albums for free. Turned into a great experience!

What does Amazon have to do with Marinetti and Mussolini?!

Amazon is fine for CDs, though. I've never bought vinyl on Amazon.

Amazon print on demand rubbish belongs in the bin, I can't even believe they sell them =/

Don't order from their webstore. I did and I regret it. First they made me wait a couple of weeks because it was "busy" in their warehouse. Than after me contacting them I find out the thing I ordered is no longer in stock. Strike 1: if I didn't contact them they would have just done nothing and pocketed my money.
After That I try to get a replacement item while at the same time filing a paypal dispute.
Apparently they figured I got my money back because I filed a dispute which for everyone who knows paypal obviously isn't the case. So they tell me to reorder. Trying to get more money out of me.
Now I'm getting pretty pissed, but I'm still trying to be nice and telling them that I did NOT get my money back.

And I get this email

Been waiting since May 5th btw.

Fuck them.

edit: after complaining on their facebook the fuckers even banned me from reply to their page.
So fucking stay clear from that label's webshop.

edit 2: oh so I actually found out that Robin fucker is Robin Staps from The Ocean.

edit 3: So I guess me being persistent and contacting some bands on his label, the band I ordered the item from and sending him another email did the trick?

http://nl.tinypic.com/r/34smmis/8

he's wrong about the paypal claim though I don't know where he's getting that idea from, whatever makes him feel better I guess.

Now he's threatening me with his lawyers because I'm posting shit on the internet haha.

I'm curious if anyone has dealt with Macabre Mastermind Records in the past, and, if so, what was your experience like? I'm giving Bob the benefit of the doubt with an order I placed, but I'm curious if anyone has any pro or con tales about this label. I searched the forums but no one has mentioned it, or at least the search option can't find anything. Thanks in advance.

These guys?

http://www.metal-archives.com/labels/Macabre_Mastermind_Records/2196
http://macabremastermindrecords.bandcamp.com/merch

Yeah, them. Just curious if anyone had good or bad luck dealing with them due to an order I placed. Was trying to gauge how I should go about handling it. Figure maybe the guy's busy with a band or something, though it's my first time dealing with them and was unsure if it was just my bad luck or a common occurrence. I managed to reach someone about it shortly after posting this though. Still would like some feedback if possible out of curiosity.

Just following up with this. The situation was I placed an order earlier in June, and heard nothing whatsoever. Contacted the label according to bandcamp's contact page for them, and never got a response. I got ticked and finally went the direct route of finding his e-mail and writing him. Later that day I got an e-mail saying he's unaware of previous messages and to shoot my address over. I did, and he sent it. No idea what happened, if it got lost in the mail or wasn't sent, but the tape just showed today with a bonus patch for the inconvenience.

Not sure what happened, but the problem was rectified quickly, so kudos on my end. Will deal with again, and if this situation occurs I know enough to go direct and not through bandcamp's seller contact page.

Hmm I can only find one instance of Redscroll being mentioned here
viewtopic.php?p=1531649#p1531649
I'm about to possibly do a pretty big-ish order there via Discogs, I've wanted to place an order with them for ages!

http://redscrollrecords.com/

Re Redscroll apart from the loose packaging everything is cool, I'm surprised they packed everything so loosely given it had to travel all the way to New Zealand...
Good prices and good communication too, pretty flexible on the postage within reason.
So the only thing that let them down was the loose packaging, otherwise excellent!

Just thought I'd post about my recent experience with Dirtnap Records. I made a sizable order two days ago from the webstore. Just got an email from the label saying that most of what was listed isn't available anymore, extremely apologetic. They said a few items were available, so they were sending what they had free of charge because of the confusion.

It sucks that their webstore was glitchy or whatever caused it, but awesome that they owned up to it and offered that! I will definitely be ordering from them again whenever they get the issues fixed!

Just had a good experience with Overheaddistro from Chicago, dude's name is Jun. Very pleasant.

Have anyone anything good/bad to say about:

Deathrune Records (Germany)

I thought that name sounded familiar, they do some bootlegs too from memory.

Invictus Productions

I know they are having a 50% off sale [the only reason for the order, postage is otherwise quite unsavoury, like most places] so may be busy but I placed an order 17 Sep and haven't heard a thing back.
So I suppose I'm just holding tight for now... I have high hopes but yeah, 2 weeks with no updates irks me a bit.
Yes I emailed them yesterday.

I think it's just one guy running it, so it may require some patience. Thought several times about ordering stuff from there but it never actually materialized, so I can't offer you any kind of feedback.

Cool just got an email, they are busy due to the sale and are playing catch up

Yo 'corpse! Deathrune Records are great. I've ordered from them before without a problem, and on Discogs, they are extremely reliable!

Well I've heard completely opposite. I thought Deathrune is one of the most well known rip off labels. Personally I wouldn't take the risk.

I've heard both too

How is the shipping from Black Mark Productions? I got the picture discs of Hammerheart and Twilight of the Gods from Hells Headbangers but they dont have all of them so I figured I'd get them from the source. And how much do they charge for LP's to be shipped to Canada?

Hey, does anyone have anything to say about Perverted Taste Germany? Been thinking about buying from there, but I'm not really sure. Would be really helpful if someone knew anything.