Good Riddance – Operation Phoenix

Wrote this review back when this was released in 1999 for my now RIP website www.punkupdates.com:

First time I met this band live was back in 1995 when they did a European tour with No Use For A Name. Back then I knew this band would offer us quite some pleasure to finish of this millenium. So this is already their 4th full-length on Fat Wreck and (although recorded in the not-so-hardcore oriented Blasting Room which is run by of All/Descendents) it's more hardcore than any of their previous work but yet without losing any of their tightness and flowing melodies. The album starts off with a M. Luther King sample to go in the overdrive Shadows of Defeat. It gets you right by the throat and watch out you don't get choked: almost the entire CD keeps up with this tempo. Russ's vocals sound rawer than ever but never irritating. Best songs for me must be songs 1, 2, 3, 6, 10 and 15. There's also a cover of a Battalian Of Saints song, but to be honest I still like the original more. As a result this one surprised me a bit because I really thought the band had turned towards a bit more melodic and poppy kind of hardcore with their previous release, but surely those who buy this album get some energy-loaded shit to swallow through. But it tastes nice.

GR surely can sollicitate for a title as "leading West Coast Hardcore band" after this release.
Best Song: A Time and a Place

I believe they were touring a lot with Sick of It All during this cycle, and it shows. Heck, it even spawned the side project "Creep Division". Anyway, I read an article/ interview the other day with Russ where he ranked this as their worst album. I couldn't possibly disagree more. This is GR and at their most distilled and vicious. I LOVE IT!

This really needs a vinyl reissue, their best album in my opinion.

I found some info on the picture on the back cover and wonder if someone can confirm this:

Nicaragua Civil War, 00-04-1984.

A Contra or anti-Sandinista guerrilla is mortally wounded by troops of the Sandinista government in jungle warfare around San Juan del Norte, Nicaragua, and carried away by his comrades.

During a coordinated offensive by Contra's against the Sandinista government in Nicaragua, guerrillas of the Revolutionary Democratic Alliance (ARDE) stormed into the settlement of San Juan del Norte, a remote Nicaraguan village of some 950 people. Their main objective was to secure a toehold in the jungle fringes of Nicaraguan territory and to gain a port of entry for military supply. After three days of fighting, the ARDE contra's succeeded in overrunning 120 defenders of the government.
ARDE claimed that their attack had been ed by mysterious gunfire from sea, which they put down to the Americans. US officials, however denied the claim. From 1982 onwards, several amendments had been ed by the US House of Representatives to limit US mingling in Nicaragua's civil war, prohibiting the federal government from providing military for the purpose of overthrowing the Communist Sandinista regime.

Picture by: James Nachtwey (USA)

So I'm very curious. As far as I know this album was never reissued and came out in 1999. This was long before labels were including digital cards and hype stickers for them on shrink.

Are these true '99 og copies with that perhaps were never on shrink and then later digi stuff was added and were shrink wrapped?