Integrity / Rot In Hell – Split [Thirty Days Of Night]

 Back in February 2010 when we were all a little more fresh faced than we are today, Thirty Days Of Night announced they were about to unleash pre-orders for a split 7 inch by Integrity and Rot In Hell.  I shat my pants at the time, like a lot of people because with this announcement Rot had just ended their Deathwish requested release freeze before the LP dropped (they still delayed it a while longer but that's a different story).  Anyway, a few nights later when the pre-orders went up I cancelled my plans to go to the movies and waited anxiously for the TDON store to be updated with the new bundles,  I ordered the most limited black copy plus the standard green/blue mix there and then.  I thought nothing of it at the time but no-one would have believed that we were to wait a further 18 months to get our hands on the things.  I won’t go into detail about it all because it’s been well documented elsewhere, I’m just here to give a bit of background and to blog about vinyl. 

This puppy is one of the band only copies on white vinyl out of 100 which I ordered direct from the band on the holy terror site, the records from TDON are safe and sound at the in-laws place.   Both records are housed in a black dust sleeve, it's good to see them opting for a corresponding colour rather than just the standard white paper, it's the attention to detail that I like most about records from these two bands.  This is a double 7" with the first record holding the actual split and the second being a kind of noisy accompaniment to the illustrations within the book by Herr Hellion.

 

The original idea was to have it housed within a hardback book but that didn't happen due to circumstances out of the band and label's control so it ended up being a double gatefold with a booklet inside which is still pretty different if you ask me.  It's full of creepy photographic art and messed up drawings of a fawn guy ripping a hole into another dimension and bringing forth all kinds of beasties.

Dwid saw fit to sign each of these copies which is a nice touch, makes the band only part of the press that little bit special.  Don’t expect to see any of my bands doing this though though, I think the record buying public would frown upon receiving their copies with my name scribbled all over it in wax crayon like the scratchings of a 30 year old man child.  We’d have our money requested back via paypal with a note saying “thanks a lot Duggan, you ruined hardcore.”

In all seriousness, it’s good to see this thing released and in the hands of the fans hands, the Rot tracks on here are tidy as usual, I’ve had the songs for a little while on the down low but you didn’t read that here.  Oh and pick one of these up if you’re a Colohan completist, just saying.  Integrity released the songs on here on their Detonate Worlds Plague 12" which I guess is technically an EP, this split was scheduled to come out ages before that record but it didn't so quit you're bitching.

Ringworm Shiz

Just before christmas last month it got dead cold but didn't snow, it just stuck in the -2 to -10 zone and forced me to dig out the ultra warm North Face coat I was forced to buy as a result (not a bad thing in my book).  So I was checking twitter around the 10th of December and noticed one of my favourite groups of all time, Ringworm, were playing in a weeks time in Buffallo which is about an hour or so's drive from me.  As luck would have it I wasn't working so I jumped in the motor with the missus and strolled up to the show, they were playing with a few bands who I wasn't interested in and Every Time I Die who also come under that header for me.  As I walked in the band before Ringworm were just finishing up their final song so I didn't have to wait and ETID were on after them so it looked like I was in for an early night.  $12 in and I didn't have to sit through anyone I didn't like, perfect show for me then.

Let's get this post on track then, Ringworm had just released a split 7" on A389 with Australia's Mindsnare, seeing as I'd just moved to another country I didn't have the funds to order one of these online during the preorders so it was a perfect time to pick up both the colour and black versions.  I don't know the numbers or anything but I'm assuming the purple is the rarer colour, it's a cool kind of semi translucent record which goes perfectly with the artwork courtesy of the Human Furnace.  The record is housed within a 7" sized comic book which includes a cool little dig at Victory records which I always welcome in 2012. 

This is the standard black, kids these days tend to not buzz over black records and prefer to gush over a clear 12" with three alternating splatters mixed in to resemble something an student would cough/spew up after 48 hours of solid drinking on freshers week.  I can understand not buzzing on a black record due to the fact it's not the rarest colour but I've noticed a bunch of labels recently using black as the more limited variant and making the main press colour so you never know kids, your black could be super rare.  In this case, it's not.

 Something I'm sure a lot of people know about and that I find a nice touch is that most of a389's releases use the same template on the A and most of the time B sides which I think adds a continuity to the records. It's normally a black background but sometimes it's changed to match the colour of the artwork like here on the Integrity To Die For 10 inches. 

At the same show the band had the Madness Of War demo 7" which was also released on a389, originally released on cassette in  the late 90's after the band came out of hiatus, the songs made their way onto Birth Is Pain albeit rerecorded.  This baby is pressed on a flexi, now I've seen a couple people perplexed by this format on a number of blogs saying they've never seen one.  Now I'm not old enough to remember when these were on the front of the NME but I do remember owning a bunch of Thunderbird flexi's that came on the front of the Frosties boxes.  They were pretty much my only records until I bought the Partners In Kryme classic "Turtle Power" single in 1990.  Ninja Turtles started by vinyl addiction...

Here's a picture of them both together:

The band copies I think were out of 50 on clear and the black was out of 200, I could be wrong so correct me with your knowledge in the comments.  What's cool about these is the fact that the silver ink used on the label makes the clear version look inverted or non-inverted depending on the background behind it. 

I received a couple of copies of both the Scars LP and the Birth Is Pain LP repress from Victory the day before I left for Canada, I did't take any pictures of them so if I remember once I'm home, I'll do a post about them.  I'm pleased Ringworm are done with their Victory contract, it's a shame they hooked up with them just before the label turned to absolute shit and started putting out A Day To Remember and other such rubbish.