Vegas - Never To Wake 12"

Its only been about ten minutes since I posted about some Holy Terror. Time for some more right? Vegas's 'Never To Wake' 12". This was a one time only pressing of 300, released on Hellfish.

One of the core Holy Terror bands, Vegas (or sometimes VVegas) play a sinister take on the Integ-inspired metal/hardcore crossover but with occasional atmospheric, ghostly acoustic sections. Backwards guitar, whispered & hoarse spoken vocals, clean guitar picking over faint walls of noise and distant metal solos. Its Holy Terror folk. They compliment the chaos of the other tracks perfectly, and if you dig that stuff at all, Vegas are for you.

Never To Wake is kind of a Vegas discography with the tracks from the 'Never' and 'Wake' albums (see what they did with the title?) almost all here. Although the 'Never' CD was a re-release of the 'Wake' CD anyway. Theres a few differences on this vinyl pressing though. The tracks from those two CD's are rearranged into a different order and the titles translated into German.

Given that the tracklisting between the Never and Wake CD's was also different (tracks seemingly titled wrong, but who's to say which one is correct?) I genuinely have no idea anymore what some of these songs are called. Mis-information and mystery are staples of the Holy Terror thing though so I'm into it. That sort of thing would normally slowly drive me insane. There's extra tracks too, a creepy (and totally brilliant) Depeche Mode (!) cover and a few tracks recorded live from a show in Japan. These sound incredible, raw and nasty as hell.

This vinyl edition has new artwork too. We get a certain California Girl in a clip from one of her videos, but made to look partially decomposed.

It's printed on a sort of silver card, looks great. There's a space for hand numbering (it's out of 250 as the first 50 had a special screen-printed sleeve I think) but it's been left blank. If you assumed that this would bother me, you are correct.

So all in all this is an awesome record, with tracklisting, content and cover art all exclusive to this release. Only 300 ever made, never to be repressed. Essential I'd say. There's still a few knocking around in various hardcore web-stores. Hunt them down.