VVegas / Abraxis Split 7"

I pre-ordered this a wee while ago now, and I'm so glad it finally finally came! It truly was a great day when I came home to this on the bench. Although for some reason I didn't notice the distinct print on the top-right corner, seeing this was from Oz I could tell exactly what was lurking inside.

Upon opening the box I was greeted by this FANtastic piece of artwork. Pictures of this had been floating around the internet, but I stopped myself from giving into the temptation of spoiling the surprise. Usually I wouldn't bother, but VVegas stuff has such a reputation for going the extra mile with packaging and the likes that I decided to wait until it arrived. I'm glad I made the decision, I was blown away when I finally saw what the design was. On the VVegas side we have a who's who of pop culture in the style of a certain Beatles album cover. So many faces are present here, so there isn't time to go over them all. Some of the more prominent ones are Sigmund Freud, Anton Lavey, Steve Jobs and even Nick Fiction. I have Picasa on my computer, and as you can imagine this picture was an absolute nightmare for it. It did a good job of picking up all the faces in the end though.

It seems Dwid from Integrity has been getting on board with designing cover artwork as of late, and once again has dabbled in both the sides you see here. The use of different purples and blues looks really great on this side, especially contrasted to the grey-scale character.

Overall this is a 3 track split 7", 1 track from VVegas and two from Abraxis. I've always said VVegas really shines when they bring out there more experimental and acoustic tracks, but that is not to say their own brand of metallic hardcore isn't welcome, in fact it is quite the opposite. The song they play on this record is a prime example of just how fantastic VVegas are at this style of music as well. Starting off with incredibly abrasive guitars and howling vocals, the song takes a while to build up. But it is certainly a good thing, you almost need that time to get prepared for the blistering speed that ensues.

To be honest I don't know an awful lot about Abraxis, I've only heard a few songs other than the song contributed to the split with Pale Creation. Regardless, I was blown away by the tracks played on this split. "Among Deep Waters" is metallic hardcore like it should be, with drums that blast like bullets into your brain. "My Friend" continues in the same direction, but has a slightly more punk feel than the previous track. And that solo towards the end, perfect.

If you head over to Midnight Funeral's webstore, you'll see many versions of this one are up for sale. What you won't see however is this version. As part of a secret pre-pre-order version, Craigos created a special "GOTU" version of this record. This was limited to as many as were ordered, which was subsequently only 59. The only main difference is the red inner sleeve that is hand stamped and numbered (I've also just noticed the box was stamped with the version details also). I'm pretty sure the colour variant was limited to this version too.

We can see just in the bottom corner that mine is lucky 30/59.

I just had a look on the website myself, and this is an exclusive colour to this version. In fact all of the colour variants look really great this time around, especially the regular pre-order on pink wax. This green really does a great job too though, especially against the red inner sleeve.
The centre labels pretty much continue the themes from their respective artwork sides.

A couple of extras were included along with the record. The first is this great patch featuring both band logos and the all too familiar Process logo.

The next is this insert detailing T's theory about a Pale conspiracy regarding Nifi, Neefee and Lucy. This is definitely worth a few reads.

As I had expected, this is one great record. Thanks to Craigos for making it all happen. Head over to Midnight Funeral and get your own copy while they still last. Gavin has also written a surprisingly similar write up on his blog (and a more in-depth review of the tracks here as well). And what do you know, so has Ezekiel now too.