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 BRIGHTER
DEATH NOW
May all be Dead
February 2000
Cold Meat Industry CMI.67
Every day my friend the postman brings me a new treat. Today, worryingly,
he provides issue 6 of the magazine Metal Nightmare. Emblazoned
across the front of this, beneath an inky picture of four mulish-looking
bikers, are a couple of useful suggestions. "Heavy metal, or no metal
at all!!!". Hmm. Tough choice that one. Next? "Wimps
and poseurs - LEAVE THE HALL!!!!". Qualifying on both counts
I would in fact not dream of venturing anywhere near the hall, unless
perhaps crossing it from lounge to kitchen in order to put the kettle
on. Brighter Death Now, on the other hand, are so uncompromisingly
brutal in their approach that even the Metal Nightmare mob might be excused
for cowering whimpering behind their powerful motorbikes. The blistering
roar of May all be Dead resembles most the sound of a massed tank
rally held in an indoor swimming pool. The mix is so total that
the complexities of voices, instruments and effects merge together into
a seething stew of blunted noise. Only the occasional feedback squeal
penetrates the mud, together with the odd (very odd) furious, incomprehensible
megaphone rant. The album is supposed to be a tribute to Crass,
but I'm glad to say that it in fact sounds more like early Swans
stuff - Raping a Slave, for instance. Like that it's satisfyingly
solid, belligerent, anarchic. "Revolution must come thru the barrel
of a gun / What's your lot / Brighter death now / Dreadful life tomorrow".
Exactly. "What is evil but good tortured by its own hunger
and thirst?" BDN take a reverential nod back to the hardened
punks of yesteryear, with their carrion crows and their piles of skulls
on one side of the sleeve, and their bloodsmeared photos of prom queens
on the other, and they do so because they're entitled to do so.
Newly released on CD this album is two years old, but it could just as
well be twenty-two. Nothing wrong with that either. Now then,
here's that BDN Crass quote in full, as delivered with venom by Eve
Libertine on Stations of the Crass back in 1980: "Out
from your palaces princes and queens, out from your churches you clergy
you Christs, I'll neither live nor die for your dreams, I'll make no subscription
to your paradise". OK to go back into the hall now? Anarchy,
peace and freedom. Good.
STEWART GOTT - 26 April 2000
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