Both bands are present with three tracks on this ‘North American Underground Alliance’. As All Die kicks of with a martial-industrial track of pretty poor sound quality, not really originally called ‘Power through will.’ It’s very reminiscent of Archon Satani and the likes: low pitched drumming, dark noises and spoken word passages on death and destruction. ‘Where falcons soar’ is another track probably inspired by a CMI act, namely Ordo Rosarius Equilibrio. Nice and bleak guitar picking, some synthesizers and again the spoken words. I’m not really impressed: the production is quite bad and the vocals really annoy me: pathetically breathing ‘We all die’ and such. When the guys behind As All Die in the track ‘Kali Yuga’ talk about righteous discrimination of the weak (probably implying they themselves are strong and intelligent) I’m not really interested anymore.
FDH, which stands for Frank den Haan, is more interesting. ‘New year zero zero’ really has a typical and compelling atmosphere, with a kind of choral samples and electric piano repetition. In the remaining two tracks FDH knows to create an interesting blend of organic sounds and noisy electronic effects. FDH definitely has more attention for melody than As All Die. Too bad the sound quality is not optimal. I really wonder what FDH will sound like with a good production. Especially the last track of the split is really interesting, nice, calming and melancholic. This is the kind of melancholy I like: that which is induced by melody and structure, not just consisting of some low-pitched synthesizer and some standard ritualistic drumming.
