Ancient VVisdom / Charles Manson - Inner Earth Inferno 12"

Ancient VVisdom play two songs on this split, and these songs were actually what got me into them in the first place. I remember I was listening to somewhat of a mix-tape released by Black Knot, when there was a rather unexpected break in the audial barrage of metallic hardcore. To go from VVegas' "Rhythm Of Decline " to "Severed Ways" was certainly a change of pace, but I liked what I heard. In fact, I liked what I heard so much that I tracked down all the information I could about the mysterious band and eventually bought their first album (and then again later on). 

The recording quality of the AVV songs is pretty poor on this one, but it really does fit with the contribution on the other half of the split. I imagine Charles does not have access to state of the art recording facilities in California State. 

As I am most of the time, I am late on picking up this record. From memory this was released in 2010, so I was surprised when I visited Withdrawal Records to see that many copies were still available. Even more surprising was the fact that copies of the limited colour version were still available; only 151 of these were pressed on red.

According to the website, the artwork for this was designed by one of Charles' friends, Star. I don't know much about this individual, but I do love this artwork.

The reverse side of the cover looks very messy. At first glance I couldn't really make out anything. But when you look at it properly, it actually contains the track-listings for this split. This is only a one sided 12", so the reverse contains no songs. It does still have an elemental centre label though.

The record also came along with a download card. I usually don't bother looking at these much because I just rip the vinyl myself. This one is something a little special though. Most of these are just printed on a piece of scrap paper, or perhaps weak cardboard. This one however, is a proper plastic card with a snippet of the album cover on the front. You've just got to love touches like that.