The Spitfire distribution sucks here as well. I had no problems with buying FSSD (there's still a lot of it on the shelves), but it was released in Poland almost 4 fucking months (February) after it had come out in the U.S. (and I've been checking in all the music stores since the end of October). I haven't seen Overkill's new record (on the same label) in stores here yet (released in Marchin the U.S., I believe) and I've heard people are having the same problem with the new BLS.
One salesman told me the label's too small to release an album all over the world on the same day. It kinda sucks and definitely drastically decreases the sales (people would go and download the album and then forget to buy it, mailorder from abroad-which is very expensive-and make a lot o copies for friends and friends' friends or after a couple of months of waiting decide to spend their money on sth that's more recent. Not the true fans, of course). Same with the promotion- not a single promo poster or an ad about an upcoming album (and I've never been able to buy a testament single here neither), while so many other bands (not only black metal)- also smaller or of similiar "size" (Machine Head, Voivod, ChoB, Sepultura, Hammerfall, Entombed, Gamma Ray etc.)- are advertised all around. Thanks to this situation hardly any "new" people are becoming familiar with testament's music (no radio airplay too, of course).
I really hope this will improve with the new record and I'll be able to put my hands on it not long after the Disciples in the states.
It appears that testament's never had too much luck with choosing their labels, although, on the other hand, Spitfire is a relatively young label, that's slowly becoming bigger and more important (they already have some significant metal acts on their bill) and will hopefully gradually develop.
