You won't have to search very hard on the world wide web to find a forum where people are moaning about how delayed the Rot In Hell / Integrity 7" has been so I'm not about to add to that here. Yes, 1 year and 8 months is a long time to wait for a pre-order to arrive. Yes, it was worrying when we were offered refunds. But it's here now. I'd heard they had started to ship out, but it was said that it could take up to 14 days to get through the orders so I thought nothing of it when a large envelope turned up that same day. But inside were two 7" mailers and a cheeky Integrity badge looking up at me. Guess mine were at the top of the pile.
This split comes in a gatefold sleeve with a glossy insert of illustrations by Dwid fixed in the centre. There's two 7"s, one is the bands, the other is Dwid reading aloud a narrative with a horror film style ambient soundtrack in the background. If I was to be critical, I'd say that it was a bit of a stretch to describe these 7"s as being 'packaged within a book' as that conjures up a slightly different image from the reality. It's a gatefold sleeve with the book fixed in the middle. Don't get me wrong it's still cool and a cut above almost any other split 7" I've seen before. Expectations are a bitch. But I ain't moaning, just saying yo.
Seems odd to me how there's no actual mention of what this is on any of the outer packaging.
There were 2 versions for this put out by Thirty Days Of Night, pressed on black out of 100 and pressed on a blue/green mix out of 500.
The Integrity tracks are kind of old news, they appeared on that Thee DestroyOrr CD a few months back. Rob Orr's lead guitar work on Black Hesken Rise is staggering though, no matter how many times I listen to it. It was great to hear some new (or old, I guess) Rot In Hell tracks. 'Erebus' features on the Nui 12" as a live recording so its good to hear it on this in all it's studio recorded goodness. Leading in with a perfectly chosen sample from Antichrist it brings the venomous Pagan hardcore. Conceptually they've never been stronger, their riffs and lead guitar parts have never been better, and the frankly amazing vocals serve as a reminder that it's a shame that Nate done left. Material with the new vocalist is apparently underway though so that's pretty exciting. Their 2nd track Life Becomes A Desert Around You leans more towards their split with Horders in its brilliant campfire cult folk style. These 2 tracks easily worth the price, the wait and the fact that it's not inside a book.