"Turpentine." Packaging The album's cover artwork features a black and white photograph of the band in 1990, taken by photographer Vicki Berndt, and an early Hole logo in pink text. Another Berndt photograph is featured on the first page of the EP's twenty-page booklet and was used by Sympathy for the Record Industry as an official promotional photograph a year later around the time of the release of Hole's debut studio album, Pretty on the Inside (1991). The booklet focuses strictly on Hole's early career and includes a full transcript of one of the band's first interviews for Flipside (issue 68) in September–October 1990, accompanying photographs by Al Flipside, the cover of the "Retard Girl" single, flyers and posters for some of Hole's early shows and various text written by Courtney Love, including a quote of Proverbs 9:13 from The Bible. On the final credits page of the booklet, Hole gives special thanks to "Miss K. Sugarheart Belljar" (Kat Bjelland of Babes in Toyland, who features on the cover of the "Retard Girl" single) labelmate Mia Ferraro of the band Spoons and a member of staff at Olympia's Evergreen State College. According to Broadcast Music Incorporated's official web site, the songwriting credits on The First Session are mistaken. Although all the songs are listed as being written collectively written by Hole, Love wrote and composed "Retard Girl" solely by herself and the rest of the songs were written by both her and Erlandson. Release The First Session was released as Hole's second EP, following Ask for It (1995), on August 26, 1997 and was only issued in the United States. The release almost identically coincided with the release of the band's first compilation album, My Body, the Hand Grenade, released a month later on City Slang. Three songs from The First Session later appeared on My Body, the Hand Grenade and "Johnnie's in the Bathroom" was omitted. Both albums were released during Hole's reported hiatus, due in part to Love's acting career, and during the transitional period between Live Through This (1994) and Celebrity Skin (1998). Upon its release, the EP failed to attract much critical or commercial reception. Jason Akeny of Allmusic rated the album two and a half out of five stars, calling it "the same abrasive, barbed-wire juvenilia it's always been" and but praises "Eric Erlandson's lumpy, lurching guitar", "Courtney Love's ear-splitting screech" that "does achieve some