As I’m sure you all figured, I pre-ordered the Funeral Mist box set the instant I saw that I could. At $80, the price was pretty steep, but I’m happy to report that it was worth every penny. For your bunch of cash, you get all of Funeral Mist’s releases to date on vinyl; Salvation and Maranatha come in double LPs, whereas the Devilry EP only has one record due to its abbreviated length. Unfortunately, as I reported before, the Havok demo does not come attached to the Devilry EP.
The box. My inner five year old really loves the texture of it.
However, there is more than enough here to make up for that bummer. First of all, the box itself is very nice, with a sleek cover and a track-listing on the back. The set comes with a huge poster (that is a really awkward size; thanks, Sweden) and a patch, along with the three LPs.
Funeral Mist patches. A rare thing.
Seriously guys. This poster is really big. Like, REALLY big.
The layout on the LPs is nice too- they’ve all been rendered with black inner panels and very little decoration. It’s simple, but it’s damned classy. And it’s not just the packaging that’s pretty. These records sound glorious, even on my tiny, mediocre turntable. Those of you who own the CDs of Funeral Mist’s albums can sympathize when I say that they are not exactly the best sounding recordings; they’re a little noisy, perhaps a little too low-fi? The records that come with Trisagion, however, have a very warm sound, and I’ve been hearing parts I haven’t really noticed before.
The records. (They didn’t come with sleeves. I put them in sleeves because I figured I’d have them out a lot.)
And the backs.
You can see the theme here, I assume. Lots of black. But it’s very sleek-looking, and I like it.
Black vinyl also. The sleeves that the records themselves come in are also really nice, with plastic on the inside to help protect the vinyl.
The liner notes come in the form of a single booklet. I mused a little about what this booklet could contain back when the announcement was first made about the release, and it is pretty much just the lyrics for the songs. It is a very nice booklet, though, printed on heavy paper and featuring what I assume is more of Arioch’s graphic design work.
III.
Latin practice, anyone?
All and all, I feel like Trisagion was worth every penny I spent on it. I know a couple of people who complained that the $80 Ajna was asking for it was a bit much, but I think for three collector’s editions of really rare albums in gatefold double-LPs that sound excellent it’s not a bad deal at all. Plus, you get all the other cool stuff that comes with it (Funeral Mist doesn’t exactly crank out the patches. That’s why I had to make my own). I’m really, really happy with this boxset, and I’m glad that I can finally listen to Circle of Eyes on vinyl.
$80 worth of awesome.
blackmetallurgy 