In the works for awhile and almost aborted after the original label that was supposed to put this out went bankrupt, this gorgeous picture disc for Coffins's Sacrifice has finally surfaced. A vinyl reissue of the 2005 collection of early odds-and-ends from Japanese deathsludge beasts Coffins, Sacrifice Of Evil Spirit features eight songs that were all recorded around 2003-2004 and released as a demo, documenting some of the earliest material from the band; in fact, this ended up becoming their first official release when the Cd was first released on Living Dead Society midway through the decade. Since then, of course, Coffins have gone on to win over a devout and bloodthirsty cult of fans who lust for their punk-infected doom laden death metal atavism, and these re-mastared demo and live tracks are crucial listening for hardcore Coffins devotees. The first three tracks ("Black Storm", the title track, "Into The Coffin") are from the Sacrifice Of Evil Spirit demo, and the sound is virtually the same as the pulverizing downtuned doom/death of their more recent albums, crushing massive riffage of the Celtic Frost/Autopsy/Asphyx variety spread over a mix of thunderous mid-paced thrash and crawling doom that emits a bonecrushing gravitational pull whenever they downshift into one of their lumbering dirges. This is insanely heavy stuff, especially on "Into The Coffin" where the band really slow things down, churning out an earth-rattling battle march for shambling undead armies.

That's followed by a mix of other material from the same era, beginning with a killer sludgy cover of Venom's "Warhead" where the black thrash metal classic is melted down into rotten black ooze. There's a set of live tracks from 2004 ("The Unspeakable Pain" and "Warhead" again), a 2003 rehearsal recording of "Unspeakable Pain", and finally a "noise remix" of "Black Storm" from the demo that is exclusive to this re-issue; I don't know if the band did this track themselves or if someone else did the remix, as there is no info on it anywhere on the jacket, and it's pretty short, but the blast of obnoxious bestial noise is a fine enough way to wrap this album up.

This new picture disc features artwork from skilled gore-visualizer Putrid that gives this a classic rotting look, packaged in a clear mylar sleeve with a printed backing insert.