Leaders Not Followers: Part 2

This is the sequel to Leaders Not Followers, the six-song covers EP of 1999. Plans for a full-length follow-up were reported in October 2002, when Shane Embury said that the more obscure the songs were, the better. The band recorded it in stages at Robannas Studios in Birmingham in June and July 2003, meaning to put it out on their own FETO label at the end of that year, and then early in 2004. In May 2004 the band's worldwide deal with Century Media Records was announced, and the finished covers record became their first release for the label: it came out in Europe in August 2004 and in the United States that October. Nineteen songs by eighteen bands are covered, among them Cryptic Slaughter, The Offenders, Hellhammer, Anti Cimex (twice), Discharge, Siege, Kreator, Die Kreuzen, Sepultura, Agnostic Front and Hirax. Barney Greenway said he hoped the record would show how much these metal, hardcore and punk standards meant to the extreme music of the day. According to the back cover of the LP, several of the originals never reached a proper album: Hellhammer's "Messiah" and Siege's "Conform" come from demos, and Master's "Master" from an unreleased album of 1985. Jim Whiteley, who played bass on the B-side of Scum, plays bass on "War's No Fairytale" and "Game of the Arseholes". The CD credits Barney Greenway on vocals, Mitch Harris and Jesse Pintado on guitars, Shane Embury on bass and Danny Herrera on drums, with Russ Russell as producer and the band and Simon Efemey as engineers. The European CD is an enhanced disc that also carries a video for "Lowlife". The running order here is the nineteen tracks of the European CD, Century Media 77487-2, with the titles as printed.