http://www.teethofthedivine.com/sit...ural-musiccode666-better-undead-than-alive-2/
Various Artists
Aural Music/Code666: Better Undead Than Alive 2 (
Code666/Aural Music)
These days, if you want to find out about a band or a whole labels roster there are plenty of options. Websites, Myspace, streaming e-cards, YouTube, you name it. The days of picking up a compilation are pretty much over. So it was a pleasant surprise to receive B
etter Undead than Alive 2, which is the compilation that Aural Music/Code666 has put together to celebrate their 10th anniversary. Cause its more than just a compilation its a collection of all-new tracks by some great bands both familiar and new and its a complete album in its own right.
And just to drive that home, Code666 enlisted the skills of
Ephel Duath founder Davide Tiso, who has composed short interstitial pieces that bridge one song to the next. Most feature the same kind of bleak, vaguely industrial noir thats characterized most of Code666s releases, although the pieces vary depending on what tracks theyre connecting. Bigger beats and active tempos for some, melodic drone and post-rock for others. Its an almost painterly approach that worked really well when Trent Reznor assembled the soundtracks for Lost Highway and Natural Born Killers (although his efforts were even more like crazed, cross-genre tapestries), and it elevates this from an arbitrary sequence of songs to a focused and holistic listening experience.
Ive bought a few of Code666s releases over the years (
Manes
Vilosophe being the most memorable), but Id only heard of half of these bands. Here,
The Axis of Perdition contributes Chained in the Damnation Asylum, which sounds like
Behemoth or
Zyklon playing in Freddy Kruegers boiler room.
Negura Bunget contributes Cumpana a typically stunning piece of grandiose, savage and scrambling black metal. If you had any fears that the band had become just a pale shadow now that two of its founding members are gone, this should change your mind. And the UKs
Fen close out the album with Twilight Descends (Eulogy) a 13-minute, storm-on-the-horizon crescendo of organic black metal. Its also a great preview of their next release particularly the clean vocals, which are performed better and mixed lower than they were on last years
The Malediction Fields - my only complaint from that otherwise-excellent debut.
Then theres the new bands new to me, at least and there were some nice surprises there too. Frances
The Oath has a chunky blackened thrash approach with layered electronics they sound like
And Oceans
AMGOD or
The Symmetry of I, Circle of O. Italys
Void of Silence captures the wistful melodies of
Tiamats
Wildhoney, so much so that it sounds like an unreleased track.
The Prophecy, out of the UK, takes the light/heavy
Opeth approach with their lush doom/death, except their softer moments sound like early 80s AOR balladry instead of soft 70s prog. And Hungarys
Damned Spirits Dance smashes together churning death metal with a progressive ear for rhythm and structure, plus two dramatically different clean vocals. One is clean, sonorous and Garm-like, and the other is a strange Zack de la Rocha rap attack that should probably annoy the crap out of me, yet the whole song holds together and is one of the most energetic and intriguing things on the entire album.
Only a few things here didnt really hold my interest.
Herrschaft, who kicked all kinds of thrashy EBM ass with their 2008 release
Tesla, sound curiously muted and less metallic on Abyssal Wounds. Swedens
DiabolicuM ignites a hellish furnace blast of black/death mayhem, but its nothing all that unique. And
Minethorn plays a dour style of industrial sludge kind of like
Mindrot meets
Skinny Puppy it would have been okay had it been buried somewhere in the middle of the album, but its the first track (maybe a bit of history at work, since the band members eventually went on to form
The Axis of Perdition). None of these are bad songs, though, not by any means, and once again, having them all flowing together with Tisos interstitials still keeps your interest over the albums 79-minute running time.
So look, the fact that I just wrote up a normal reviews worth of coverage for what should ordinarily be considered a compilation should be a convincing enough reason to check this out. Plus Ive now got three bands upcoming releases on my to-buy list (
Axis, Negura and
Fen), and four more on my to-check-out list. And Ive got another varied and interesting album that Ill be playing for awhile. Happy 10th, Code666.
Written by Jordan Itkowitz
February 10th, 2010