Oede / Vermapyre split 7"

Two of the more obscure bands in my radar are Oede and Vermapyre, but since their respective first releases (One Man's Trash and the split with Parasite) they have both been able to maintain my interest. Now they have gotten together and released a new split 7", the first released on the relatively young Negromancy (or Devilment) label. 

First off, I must comment on the Oede artwork. It is a little bizarre, but I think it is pretty top notch and is able to sum up the tracks pretty well. Oede brings two new tracks to the table with "Gots Them Pales" and "March of the Negromancer". The first is my favourite of the split, with a cool laid-back blues style distorted guitar. Their is even a hint of harmonica as the song progresses, which sounds awesome. The second track takes an incredibly more noisy approach, with some of the most distorted vocals I think I have ever heard.

Vermapyre is a band that I fell have changed a lot in the short time since their first split with Parasite. The project was still very black metal/noise orientated, but they still had "Return of the Sorcerer", which had more of a hardcore feel. That has been completely stripped away now, and replaced with an even more darker and obscure sound of twisted vocals and ominous riffs. The second track "Cercueil  de la Mort" (which I believe roughly translates into "Coffin of Death") sounds like it has come straight out of some hideous nightmare, which is of course exactly the point.

For a first vinyl release, Negromancy have done a pretty decent job with the packaging. I already mentioned the artwork on the outer sleeve above, inside of which has one extra piece of artwork from each band. What really stands out though is the vinyl itself. In total there are about 6 different versions, a black, red, green, purple, starburst and a test press. I'm not sure exactly how many test presses were produced in total, but each of those came with hand drawn artwork. Every other version is pressed in a quantity of 50, except for the starburst version. This is what I was lucky enough to grab, which is limited to just 12 copies. It looks FANtastic too.

The Oede side even has some googly eyes glued onto the centre label.