VARIOUS ARTISTS:
Sometimes Death Is Better (Parts 5 - 9)

80 songs / 359 minutes Shiver - - -

This was a true death metal marathon. 5 CDs containing 80 bands coming from 28 different countries, playing music for nearly 6 hours. My ears were bleeding after the experience. If you're not into death metal, this won't be interesting for you, but real death metal fans should seriously consider buying this 5-CD-compilation from the Belgian underground label Shiver. There are nearly no big names on the CD (except from Czech band Krabathor), but a whole lot of great death metal bands to be discovered. OK, among the 80 bands there are also some real bad ones, but the main goal of these CDs should rather be to give you a broad view of the death metal underground. From the musical point of view you get a lot of different brutal metal styles: death, black, grind, gothic, pagan, thrash metal,... You won't be bored to easily. There are even 2 bands from Luxembourg (Lifeless and Pagan Winter), but most come from Sweden (11), Germany (7), Finland (6) and France (5). The Belgian scene itself is a bit under-representated with only one band. The extremely low price of only 1.000 BEF (about 30 US$) should be reason enough to buy this compilation-CDs immediately. No reasonable rating possible, but it is value for money. Shiver Records, c/o Hans de Wyngaert, Bossepleinstraat 6, 3128 BAAL, Belgium.