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Brighter Death Now

Brighter Death Now – Everything Is Gonna Be Alright (2022)

More BDN and he is touring too. Roger Karmanik appears to have an artistic upliving. “Everything…” comes as a 10″, listed as “CMI-03”, but available from Tesco. It does not appear to be a rerelease.

The first track is a throbbing piece of industrial. Not as harsh as BDN can get. A good track. The next track is more noisy, but again relatively tranquil. The same can be said about number three, but this is more industrial than the previous track and reminds a bit of Karmaniks older (Lille Roger) material.

Then comes the absolute highlight of this release. “Love Hard” has a bit of a Thorofon approach. A somewhat ‘rhythmic noise’ rhythm with vocals of an artist I was not familiar with: Åsa Tedebro. She looks pretty classically goth on her Discogs page and appears to be a guest singer every now and then, but not an artist (or band) of her own. Her dramatic vocals go perfectly well with the background noise that intensifies and calms down again. It appears that the Swedish electropunk band Isotope Soap (that I also think I was not familiar with) have something to do with this track. It is a great track.

Links: Brighter Death Now, Tesco

Brighter Death Now – All Too Bad – Bad To All (2021)

The latest BDN comes through Tesco. It looks like this is the first cooperation between both industrial dinosaurs.

“All Too Bad” starts with a noisy piece of music, not the “death industrial” style of Karmaniks project. This already returns in the second track, which has a throbbing rhythm and far away distorted vocals.

Karmanik seems to have wanted to lay more stress on the noisy side of the project this time, as the following tracks are much more in a noise direction than death industrial. Usually there is some sort of industrial rhythm in the background though.

“All Too Bad” actually is not all that bad. Perhaps a bit short, but apparently I can stand the noise side of BDN better today than I used to. Perhaps I should start listening to older material.

Links: Brighter Death Now, Tesco

Lille Roger – Undead 1984-1987 (2021)

In 1995 I was in contact with Mortiis and so I also came in contact with Cold Meat Industry. I bought quite some of their back catalogue, but it was mostly the more tranquil material that I was interested in in the beginning. It took a while before I learned to appreciate things like Mental Destruction and MZ.412 and even longer before I started to like Brighter Death Now.

Lille Roger I of course knew by name. It was the pre-BDN project of the main man behind CMI, Roger Karmanik. The original “Undead” 7″ has been released in 1987 so it was long sold out. Also it was the final release of Lille Roger (and the start of CMI). The old project nevermore appeared on compilations, so I never really got to know Lille Roger.

Apparently there has been more releases before “Undead”. It is not entirely clear to me what the story is about his box set. Discogs has it listed as a 2018 CMI release, but only recently it seems to have been made available by Tesco. Is that a rerelease or did the CMI version never come about? Or is this a cooperation?

In any case, you can get this 64 track compilation as a Bandcamp release, a 7 lp box or a 5 cd box. It is quite pricey, but it seems to look good. I got myself the cd set, but waiting for the physical version, I can already listen to all the tracks on Bandcamp.

“Lille Roger” made what we would call death industrial nowadays I guess, but for some tracks ther term angstpop may fit the bill as well. Industrial noise with slow rhythms, samples and vocals. The vocals are somewhat ‘atypical’ as they are usually not heavily distorted and often even sung. The tracks are not as dark as BDN can get, but the sound does often already remind of BDN. Here and there the sound becomes a bit lighter.

Some tracks are somewhat simple, but many tracks are actually quite enjoyable. It is not overly extreme industrial music, so it is relatively easy to listen to. Not bad at all!

Link: Tesco

Brighter Death Now * With Promises Of Death (cd 2014)

CMI may be dead and buried, but Roger Karmanik apparently wanted to keep full control, so he founded a new label, Familjegraven, to release his own material. “With Promises Of Death” is the first effort.

The album contains dark and pounding, noisy industrial. Most of the tracks are not the chaotic, earcracking type of noise that BDN delivers sometimes, but more my kind of noise. “Death industrial” is a good way to describe the music. For those of you who know BDN there will be no big surprises. I am personally not an avid follower of BDN (in fact, this is the first album that I review…), but this new album sounds about as good as the wonderfull “Kamikaze Kabaret” of 2005. I do not know if I have heard each and every album in between, but there you might have an idea of the sound of the new cd.

Links: Brighter Death Now, Familjegraven