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.

Integrity - Detonate VVorlds Plague [Holy Terror]

I like Integrity, I think they're all right you know? They put out a couple of duds around 2000-2002 but everything else has been pretty much solid gold.  This new record is a collection of all of the new material written with the prodigal son Mt Rob Orr, more of a stripped down Integrity.  If you're looking for a production similar to To Die For or Humanity Is The Devil, you're shit out of luck, this is a band doing what they want and setting out to please no-one.  In fact, I'm sure if you were to not like this and then go on to tell anyone in the group, they'd be pleased, kind of like how Stewart Lee revels in the fact he isn't as popular as some of the comics you see on the panel shows on the telly. I like The Blackest Curse, it had more of a metal sound to it, this record is the one you should play to a friend who hasn't heard that band they keep seeing the kids wear the shirts of when they go to the local rock concerts.

This wasn't one of those simple pre-orders where you go to the website and order all of the colour variants at one, this was a staggered release.  Holy Terror had the purple copies (which came with the big ass patch and CD version with the extra tracks and interview) and the black while Hellfish had the yellow which didn't go on sale until a few days later, the red copies went up on Holy Terror a few weeks after I got mine in the post, these are the band copies out of 100, wish I'd known beforehand. Seriously, if you were to not go online for a week you'd probably miss out on another Integrity pre-order. I settled on just the one colour so that i at least had a copy of this on vinyl, saving money is real hard eh.

Invisible ink is something that has been used on many an Integ record in the past couple of years, this one is no exception, all of the song names on the back are written in it too which makes for a less busy but more artistic sleeve. The CD version also uses the same technique.  My copy came with a free patch, I haven't got a suitable jacket to put it on without removing a Rot In Hell one, plus I haven't even worn it out of the house yet.  Fucking sewing.

 It's hard to get a decent picture of the vinyl, in normal light it's purple, that's what colour it is officially, but try to take a picture of it in my flat and it either looks blue in the light, or nearly black when placed on the table.  It's a good tone nonetheless, I might order the red vinyl as I've seen a few posted online and it's nic, plus it's more limited so that automaticly makes it better.

Integrity - The Blackest Curse [Deathwish]

I didn't post about this record straight away because I knew I'd be picking up the second press from the Deathwish store at some point and I didn't want to post three times in as many months about the same record. The record is numbered out of 30 copies from the first press records of the red vinyl (which are out of 300), they have stamped inserts which are wax sealed and Dwid sketched a photo which is included inside the sleeve.  I know Herr Hellion likes to make these special variations of his groups records and whilst it makes it that little bit cooler to own a rare variation it also adds a personal touch to an already great package that this LP is.

A closer look at the sketch:

Close up of the wax seal:

So that's the "special edition" of TBC, four copies of the first press so far, missing a test which I know for a fact I'll never own since there were 2 made and one went on eBay for about $400.  Onto the second press, this is out of 1000 so I didn't rush to order one since I'm pretty confident the real nerds were all over the first press.  They're all on grey, I saw Marcus posted about this one the other week and I agree they missed a trick by not pressing it on black, but word is the third press may be noir so I guess I've got another record to look forward to purchasing.

So that's 5 copies of the record I own now, I guess the red is technically a spare/double since I have the special version of it.  Looks pretty cool, also I have 4 digital downloads spare if anyone wants one, I suppose you could call it a gift, leave a comment if you want one.

Integrity - Those Who Fear Tomorrow (repress) [Organized Crime]

Micha!  This is the big one I've been waiting for, the Organized Crime repress of Integrity's first full length.  I posted a while back about the 'In Contrast Of Sin' repress, I missed out on all three colours for that one and as such, I missed out on the cool extras that came with it, this time I was determined to get the whole lot.  I think I succeeded quite well.  The record comes on three different colours, if you ordered all three at the same time and were one of the first 100 pre-orders then you get an envelope with a bunch of old flyers which is stamped on the front.  That in itself is pretty awesome and adds a personal touch.

The black swirl vinyl came with a black and silver Stephen Kasner cover which is his own interpretation of the Francis Bacon original artwork much the same as the previous repress, mine was numbered number 28 rather than being one of the final 50 like before.  Score.  

Here's the jammy part, as my order was number 28, I was part of the first 30 which means I got a Kasner sketch edition.  Basically he did a quick sketch of the umbrella dude on the inside of the cover and signed it, turns out I can be lucky now and again.

For proof there was a laminated card inside telling you that you are basically a winner.

Front:  

Back:

Dwid has updated the artwork inside and out, all of the text is done with that cool invisible ink that he seems to like using these days, some of the text, like on the front,  so it's a more glossy effect to the background.  The other text you can only see by holding it against the light, I tried to get it to show up in a picture but it is bloody hard to represent.  For example this snap I took of the inside of the gatefold has the skull behind the lyrics, you should probably buy a copy if you want to see it properly.

The back cover came out a little better.

The pink and swirl records both have stamps on the white bags too, I can't imagine how long these all took to put together, they've put a lot of work into the whole package, I prefer labels to pull their finger out and do something cool like this rather than just to stuff the records in a mailer and send it out without even a note of thanks.

Red out of 680

Pink vinyl, #28/225

Black swirl out of 320, this came with the Kasner cover

To top it off, the mailer was spray stencilled inside so you can keep the records in their own box, icing on the cake or what?

Finally, just for shits and gigs, a shot of everything that came in the set.  The good news is there's about 4 more records in the series to come, cannot wait.

Edit, I noticed this the other night while having a listening session, the label on the A side smells like maple syrup, but not the B side.  Now that's weird.  Not as weird as you think I am now though, you probably think I smell every piece of vinyl before I put it on the turntable, normally that wouldn't be the case, but this time it is.  My buddy Dan actually noticed it, I think he wanted to eat the pink vinyl, it kind of looks tasty in a 5 years old chewing everything brightly coloured kind of way.  

Integrity - Septic Death [Victory]

This is a weird one (unusual for an Integrity record to be described as unusual isn't it?), this is basically two Septic Death tracks with Dwid's vocals recorded in place of the original vocals.  Originally given away with copies of a zine called Bloodbook, Victory did a repress of it on white, clear and black.  This is the second record I got from the missus as a birthday present.  The vinyl has a whisp of white in it on the edge, this would suggest that this was made just after the white records and the flecks of white are leftovers from that run.  I like it when that happens, I think the term is transitional records.  My copy hasn't got an insert, I think the original dude must have lost it or something, don't know how though, I've never lost something like that, but then again, I'm not retarded.

Integrity / Psywarfare - Split [Victory]

I got this one last week as part of a set of two for my birthday as a gift from the girlfriend, she knows the score.  This one is probably the only record I know I've got the full set instantly because the whole press was on these picture discs.  Two tracks from Integrity and two from Psywarfare (Dwid's side project).  The Integ tracks on this 7" are earlier recordings of a couple from 'Seasons In The Size Of Days' which is one of the full lengths that I still think is up there as some of their best work.  Apparently the photo on the Psywarfare side was taken by Jack Abernathy, that guy is mysterious isn't he.  The cool thing about the Psywarfare side is that it has locking grooves at the end of each track which is the same groove every record has at the end of each side, funny how Victory even mentioned that on the front sticker to make sure people didn't whinge they had a faulty record.

Integrity - VVe Are The End [Magic Bullet]

I was waiting to get this for a little while now, by that I mean it has been about 3 weeks since I ordered it, which is nothing really.  This is the new 2 track 7" from Integrity (I say 2 track, it's more of a duo of songs melded to one, or one song with two names, take your pick), I don't know much about where the songs are from, I'm assuming they were recorded on or around the same time frame they recorded The Blackest Curse, or possibly after, I'm no expert.  I picked this up from the Holy Terror store after I got wind that there was going to be 30 copies of the pink vinyl going on there which are kept aside because the other 70 were being sold at the Integrity show in Anaheim on 7.17.  These are all individually numbered and have a wax seal, also Dwid signed the back of the cover.  It's one of those records that are just a 7x7" sheet of card, no fold or anything, artwork has pretty much everything you could expect from a pastiche Integ cover: process logo x about 50, Robert DeGrimston, Anton LaVey, a few Manson girls, Charlie Manson, the goat of Mendes, some arabic(?) text and a bunch of other symbols.  I fucking love it, I've been sitting here checking out all of the pictures in the background while spinning the record and had to play it twice before I'd studied the whole thing.  Did I mention it was super detailed?

The wax seal has Dwid's face drawing on it, the one from dwidhellion.com, I got #9.

The pink record has a few tiny specks of grey spotted around it, probably only 5 or 6, I'm guessing this is left overs on the plates from the run of 100 grey records that Magic Bullet were selling on pre-orders with a limited shirt.  I didn't order one, stupidly I opted out because they didn't have my size shirt left, what I should've done was order it anyway and flog off the shirt, silly me.

This is the icing on the cake right here though, the b-side is blank, both tracks fit on the a-side, so on the back there is the Integ skull laser etched instead.  I've seen b-sides have scratched designs, Hope Con's File .03 has the skull bomb scratched on it.  This is very clean and more like what the apple logo looks like on the back of an iPhone.

Yeah those are Jack Skellington coasters from the Disney store, what of it?

4 for 4

I've got a stack of new records sitting next to the couch at the moment, the past 6 weeks I've spent way too much of my money on vinyl and it's started to be drip fed to me by the lovely mailman who comes to my office, not the retard who does the rounds to my house, records don't get delivered there anymore after he left my Wayfarer LP out in the rain.  Anyway, A389 being the brilliant label they are, did a pre-order package a few months back which I ordered to get Integrity's To Die For 10" on red as I slept on the blue press, but I'll get to that in a moment.  The package included 4 records, 2 7"s, a 10" and this 12" from Caulfield:

I'd never heard the band before but seeing as you get a more limited variant of one record and a bonus 7" I thought it'd be rude not to.  Boy was I right to order the whole package, the first thing I noticed was that the LP sleeve was hand made, we're talking black marker on the folds to mark out where to cut and screen printed front/back too.  My copy has a little white ink smudged on the front, I don't think this is intentional but it adds to the DIY feel of the package.  The insert is also pretty cool, photocopied with thick card on the outside and biblical demon images inside along with the lyrics.  I've been listening to this quite a bit on vinyl and mp3 due to the download card included and I'm really into it, it's crusty, doomy and right up my street, can't wait to see what they come up with next.

One thing I dig with A389 releases is that the label artwork is more often than not always the same template, the colours change and the bands logo is always different but other than that it never often differs.  Brings to mind memories of looking through my Mum's 7" box when I was growing up, all her records had the holes punched out as she'd inhereted them from the jukebox in my Grandad's pub, most of those always had a generic label.  More hardcore labels should do this, too many bands are trying to put labels on the vinyl that goes with the main artwork, but fuck it, have a generic template for the record label and fall in line with the rest of the roster, into it.

Next is the record which swayed me to go all out for the package rather than order To Die For separately, this Pale Creation 7" is only available on red vinyl in the deal.  Pale Creation are kind of underrated in the genre right now, their full length Twilight Haunt is up there with Integrity's Those Who Fear Tomorrow and shows all the signs of being a hardcore masterpiece.  The tracks on this 7" are new if I recall, VVake Of Temptation has Nick Fiction busting out some clean vocals which normally I would cringe at if any other band of this genre would do, but it works, the tracks here could easily have come from the full length, I hope they put out another record soon.

Let's get on to the record shall we?  Artwork comes courtesy of Stephen Kasner, a legend in himself, would certainly love to have him do some artwork for my band, if we ever put out more than one record every 18 months.  The vinyl is red, but opaque, I think every red record I own is clear so this is refreshing, almost a maroon colour when seen in the flesh, notice the generic label again.  Standard.

The next record is a bonus for the deal, split 7" from Integrity and Pale Creation.  I didn't own any PC wax until this package arrived, now I own 2, brilliant.  No generic labels here, but I'm assuming as it's a bonus record it can be let off, also there is no text on the sleeve to tell you what bands it is so the labels are your only info here.

Now this record I could have got on the original press when they did a run on blue vinyl with alternate blue artwork but I'm not one to chase buzz records on ebay.  So when it was announced it would gt a second press on a different colour with new artwork I was very interested.  This time we have Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme on the cover, another one of the Manson girls (the blue version had Sandra Good on it, I think I preferred that one actually, a little more sinister).  No text on the front or back, the same image is reversed on the back too.  The only text on the artwork is on the spine.  

The insert shows both the girls, the blue version showed them with their jugs out, this one they look like a chipmunk and Linda Blair from the Exorcist.

The only infor about the record is on the label, you can just about see it in this photo, the B-side has the skull in the same colours.  To Die For was the first Integrity record I got back in '03, I hadn't heard them before this other than the Only The Strong comp 7", I honestly think it's a banger, everything just gelled really well on this record, they weren't experimenting with the Sam Hain/Danzig vibe or anything nu metal, it was jus pure old school Integrity.  I later found out it was put together form old In Cold Blood riffs which kinda sucks, but I still love it.