When we were kids, getting a free sampler CD along with a magazine or as a promo item in a record store was the coolest thing. The coolest fucking thing! 20 tracks of music for FREE, or for the price you were going to pay for your favorite magazine anyway. And though the Internet has all but done away with the need for CD samplers (and any would-be fan curious about a given band can stream a few tracks on MySpace within minutes), the idea of a free downloadable sampler is still pretty cool because you might find something cool that you’ve never heard before.

The folks at Metal Blade and Hydra Head know this all to well, as both labels are giving away free samplers online highlighting some of their very best artists.

Hydra Head’s 22-track sampler — featuring tracks by Daughters, Knut, The Austerity Program, Cave In, Keelhaul, Clouds, Xasthur, Gridlink, Torche and much more — comes along with the announcement of their brand new digital web-store. Honestly, it’s a head-scratcher at to why all record labels don’t have their own web-stores. Seems kinda pointless to give iTunes/Amazon/etc $0.30 on every dollar when you don’t have to, and affordable digital solutions to make this possible are all over. Anyway, download that bad boy here.

Metal Blade’s sampler has 23 tracks (take that, Hydra Head!) and seems to be some kind of split between Metal Blade artists and a few other randos who are on the Cool Tour this Summer [update: the sampler is actually a split between Metal Blade and Good Fight, in conjunction with The Cool Tour. -Ed.]. Bands include: The Absence, Bison B.C., Brain Drill, Istapp, The Ocean, Skyforger, Woe of Tyrants, Cancer Bats and Son of Aurelius. And that’s just a small sampling… yowza! While some of these tracks have been out for quite a while, some of them are spankin’ new — like Fleshwrought’s “Mental Illness” — and at the price of free, who am I to argue? Download this puppy from Amazon.

-VN

Thanks: Islander of No Clean Singing for the MB link