runaway

I've found that generally when I'm really excited about a new record, I'll get photos of it and post about it within a few days of receiving. Not to say that I haven't been at least interested in this 7", but I've had this thing for at least six weeks now, and to be honest, I'd more or less completely forgotten about it. Anyway, this is that newish split 7" from Converge and Drop Dead. My copy is a mucky dark green and black smudge of who knows how many. Touted as self released by the bands, there is an Armageddon Label logo on the back. Not sure about the details of that label really. You could probably unofficially chalk this up to Deathwish Inc too.
One song from each band, the Converge number, "Runaway" is quite a good song surprisingly. It's fast and rough in the right places, built largely around a d-beat that's injected with cool blast beats here and there. The only part that's a let down is the totally out of place guitar noodling bits that Ballou utilises in each chorus. Some Converge heads that I have talked with love it, but I can't stand it. Prevents a 'good' song from being a 'great song'. The blast beats are very cool though.

I've never been a massive Drop Dead fan so I think I'd struggle to accurately describe their input here without annoying some fans of theirs. "Paths Of Glory" is a predominately fast track structured on a quick 1-2 1-2 beat. Relatively clean recording not dissimilar to that LP of theirs that Ballou recorded years back. The guys vocals come across a little more reserved here compared to that album, age may have something to do with it.

Here's the part that I use to bitch about Deathwish Inc as an online store. I am not too sure what has happened at Deathwish headquarters, I heard that they employed someone new to handle the processing of orders, but in the last 18 months I have experienced nothing but trouble with this label as a reliable source of vinyl nerdery. I originally ordered this split direct from them, only to have it never show up. Various emails did nothing to help, so I gave up and just grabbed this at my local store. Three other orders I have placed with the label in the last 18 months either never showed up, took a VERY long time to show up, or showed up minus items or the wrong items. Every time correspondence with the label was either sub par or non existent. In my opinion, a label of such repute and size should be putting a lot more effort into how it operates in this field. Okay, rant over.
In the better light you get a much better idea of this particular colourway. I think officially there were something like four separate colours pressed, something like that was announced anyway, but from what I've gathered from various blogs and forums over the last few months, because of the method used in the pressing of this split, the actual variations number in the high double digits, possibly more. Sucks to be a Converge collector. This one will do me just fine.

I read that Converge are writing for a new album now. I predict an early 2012 release. Maybe?