DEATH DRIVE – Into the Never cd

 Death Drive’s ‘Into The Never’ is a release by the Greek label, but, and again, I am no fanboy, this could have been on Ant-Zen as well, or maybe the sidekick label Hymnen. I don’t think I heard of Death Drive before, which seems to be the vehicle of Kostas Karamitas. The cover is all black and silver and fits the grimness of the music. In the opening track, ‘Inhibition’, beats are hammered down, right into your skull, without any mercy. Synthesizers are erected like walls, thick and high, like a prison perhaps. Music as a terminal disease. There is a combination of pieces with much rhythm and others with a noisier drone basis. Looking outside, a beautiful early

spring day in The Netherlands doesn’t exactly quite match the grim character of this music. I should have played this a few weeks ago when it was grey and utterly cold. This is the soundtrack to such bleak days (I am not known as a lover for all things extreme hot or cold), a dance macabre if you will. If the PS Stamps Back release is a bit too long for my taste, then the thirty-three minutes of Death Drive is a bit too short, and a forty-five/fifty-minute length for both would be preferred. I realize this is a futile problem! I should accept them for what they are: fine albums.

(fdw/vital weekly)