The self titled (and only widely circulated) Lurker of Chalice release quickly fell into the 'I'll never want to drop that much money on a record' category, and although I'd put a few copies in my want list on Discogs, I never held my breath much on a reasonable copy coming by and half tried to forget about it.
Fast forward a few long months from there, and Nuclear War Now Productions start dropping a hard hint or two that this record would soon be reissued under their label; alongside an even more faint rumbling that more Lurker recordings would resurface after and see a wider, more official release.
Lurker Of Chalice - Lurker Of Chalice - Nuclear War Now! Productions - 1st Press - Bronze Vinyl - Die Hard Edition.
Although I wasn't quick enough to grab the more limited Beer/ Black Marble variant /100; I kind of had my heart set on this copy for the extras anyway. Apparently a 'Die Hard' edition is something of a common occurrence with this label, but as it was my first direct order from NWN! I wasn't 100% sure on what to expect.
The first thing I noticed about this record upon receiving it was how well shipped it was. Without any doubt the best packing job I have received from any label. A big old box, stuffed with packing peanuts, rolled up jiffy mailers on the corners and a bit of bubble wrap on the extras. NWN offer a really reasonable UK shipping rate too, which has me excited for future orders.
The 'all out' packing spreads out into all out packaging too. The cover art has a bronze tinge to it, as opposed to the more stark black and stone cover that the Southern Lord press has. This bronze tinge is complemented by the foil pressed Lurker... logo in the top left.
The record came in a polysleeve with a hype sticker. Wrest is the more associated name for Jef Whitehead when making music under the name of Lurker of Chalice or (the more widely known and prolific) Leviathan.
The back cover has the NWN logo in the bottom left. The main illustration was used as the original cover for the CD release of the album way back in 2005. This illustration was also used by NWN as the test press covers; and was used on a long sleeve shirt design at preorder of the album. The rejected test was /20 copies and featured the design in black and white. The accepted test was /30 copies, with a Bronze cover colour way and White / Red vinyl. Those also appeared in the store if I remember right prior to the preorder of the LP.
Inside the gatefold has the track listing and a couple more pieces of art, all in the same colour theme. The first track appears as untitled everywhere; but the little logo in place of a name looks like a small rune or maybe even a pitchfork or scythe?
A quick look at the centre label. They don't differ over the four sides apart from the little logo towards the bottom of the label. The bronze really works well with the cover art and the variant has a bit of texture to it as you can see in the run out groove.
Every variant of the LP (of which there are three) comes with this A2 poster of the back cover art. Again, it would be tempting to hang but I know I really won't. This isn't what makes up the die hard package, just a nice little extra.
The extras are a nice high gloss sticker and the die cast metal pin. The sticker is a fun little extra, but the pin is what I was really after. With two pin backs to hold it in place, and one of the most intricate and well translated designs I've seen on a pin, I knew it was worth the extra few dollars. It's pretty hefty too, and sits on a denim jacket way more comfortably than anything else I tend to wear. A pin company called poser gear have also recently released a 'Howl Mockery at the Cross' pin that I'm pretty tempted by.
There we have it; hopefully churning out only one post in the last few weeks is slightly made up by the fact that it's a pretty long one!
