i bought the converge 'the long road home' dvd last year and it was real fun to watch these old digitalised vhs excerpts of long gone shows in the nineties. as this is almost pre jane doe era stuff played there exclusively, i took out my copies of 'petitioning forever' and 'unloved and weeded out' to listen to them more closely than before. i don't know if these live shoots from the dvd were what i needed to see the converge nineties stuff in a different light, but suddenly i listened to them a lot.
finally i seemed to understand these great songs. therefore i planned to get the 'caring and killing' compilation on vinyl in the foreseeable future. i had an internet option but wasn't sure if it was a coloured vinyl version. when i was in kiel recently and payed blitz record store a visit, i was actually looking for some birthday presents for a friend. looking through the racks i also came across this lovely copy of 'caring and killing'.
i opened the shrink to find that the vinyl was coloured and at this moment i knew, i had a new addition to the converge collection. it even was a bit cheaper as my internet option but as this hydra head re-press is pretty pricey in general, it wasn't a steal either. this compilation was actually an europe exclusive released by lost and found records in 1995. lost and found overpriced it and thus the band let hydra head re-release in 1997 for a fair price, making the l&f release obsolete. just like ignite with 'call on my brothers', another band that got beef with this german label over an eu-release.
anyway, this lovely compilation consists of the debut album 'halo in a haystack', three compilation songs, the 'where have all the flowers gone' demo from 1992 and a previously unreleased recording session from 1994. like mentioned above hydra head released this in 1997 on cd only and decided six years later to finally give it the vinyl treatment. the gatefold comes on some slick glossy cardboard and the records on clear with black splatter of 180g quality vinyl. 700 copies made if jake's info is correct. unfortunately my copy didn't have the jane doe sticker on the shrink. hydra head records. 1997/2013.
