Artist: Various
Title: Better Undead than Alive 2
Type: Album
Label: Code 666

This album should probably be advertised as the ultimate uncomfortable listening experience. Davide Tiso, the man behind the avant-garde Jazz Metal sounds of Ephel Duath, is a strange man but highly creative. He is responsible for the fillers by various artists from the Code 666 camp. Even before you’ve heard anything else, he makes sure that your nightmares are well and truly fulfilled. What he has created could have come from a film set. Bleak imagery abounds. “Been Good” conveys the impression of crumbling run down buildings and hopelessness. It doesn’t get happier than that.

Mr Tiso’s opener “Well”, an industrial interlude featuring the distorted sounds of experimentation, is the perfect lead into the first of the compilation, Minethorn’s “Icons (of the Cursed Earth)”. This album is impressive on a number of levels, not least the fact that every track is an original recording. The styles vary as the album progresses but Tiso was given the job of making the mix coherent, and this he has done by ordering the tracks, and linking them with his own chilling creations. So Minethorn treat to us to a typically ambient, bleak and languid number in an industrial setting, descending into screams. Our invitation to the sounds of Middlesborough continues with more sweeping industrial darkness from The Axis of Perdition. Tiso then develops the mood with “We Have”, in which the sound of a very grotesque fairground is invoked. Indeed, Diabolicum’s “Salvation through Vengeance” is more about mood than darkness. That comes later. The mood is one of penetrating disturbance. The guitar is simple but judging by the singer’s cries, it’s as much mental as physical. The track which follows, Void of Silence’s “Instrumental Void” is shattering. It is a total immersion of deep and majestic sadness. A change of direction then follows this monumental slab of doom. A Tiso electro-nightmare logically precedes the Electro Goth Metal of Herrschaft. So how do you link this with the Symphonic Black Metal of The Oath? Tiso gets it right every time, here with a bleak and minimalist number. In fact the link is more interesting than the track which makes the noises of Stormlord but isn’t inspiring. The same is true of The Prophecy’s “Adrift”, a nondescript melodic track to begin with before transforming into doom. I found it too lightweight and I didn’t get where it was going. It’s Tiso’s interpretations though which make this compilation really interesting. We’re into Black Metal territory now, and in readiness Tiso produces a scary score for a sci-fi drama with “Worth”. “Cumpana” from Negura Bunget follows. As usual from this Transylvanian band, it’s an impressive piece of dark and atmospheric Black Metal with surprisingly Mediterranean touches of both an upbeat and dirge-like kind and interesting sound effects. Tiso’s “It” beams us across to another planet momentarily, and then to finish is the epic “Twilight Descends (Eulogy)” from the UK’s Fen. It’s 15 minutes of slow and deliberate post doom. Inevitably comparisons will be made with Neurosis, Cult of Luna and Isis et al, but Fen place their own mark on it. The sweeping melancholy is gradually overwhelming, and it ends majestically. This compilation from Code 666 is a great idea and excellent value. Moreover it’s not just a few tracks flung together but a well-constructed work with tracks that you won’t have already because they were specially recorded for this album. Of course the styles, whilst uniformly gloomy in their different way, are disparate and whilst I personally didn’t like everything, most of it I did like and it’s great to hear stuff by bands I didn’t know so well. It’s a great advert for what the label does. Then there are the amazing interludes which were more interesting than the tracks themselves and certainly created a unity as well as reinforcing the dark and disturbing message. All in all, “Better Undead than Alive 2” is a thoroughly absorbing and mind-provoking listen.

http://www.myspace.com/code666records

Andrew Doherty

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