Listening to the soundtrack for the first Underworld is a schizophrenic experience. On one hand, the listing boasts some of the most beautiful and haunting pieces of melancholia ever to cross my ears, such as the Loner Mix of David Bowie’s Disco King, in which his light, fatigued voice adds textures of regret and longing to a song that’s already creepy. I also really like Suicide Note by Johnette Napolitano, in which the singer expresses her impotent sadness at a friend’s self-destruction: “I wanted to believe / You would win / The war in your head / That I did not understand.” I also just love Awakening by the Damning Well, especially for its pounding bass line and the lyric “I realize that I miss being human.”

At the same time, the disc also holds a crapload of sheer turds. Lisa Germano’s From A Shell features the hilarious and inane repetition of “It’s the buzz,” which really adds nothing to the song. I’m not sure whether Puscifer is purposely going over the top in Rev 22:20 [“Jesus is risen / It’s no surprise / Even he would martyr his mama / To ride to hell between those thighs” = boring], but I like to think that they are, which makes their blatantly obvious use of religious terms a bit more forgivable. Meanwhile, Judith by A Perfect Circle, despite being eminently singable [unlike much of the stuff on this CD], makes my ears bleed by singing, “Fuck your god!” and not doing anything with the sentiment except for flogging it to death and back. Fuck your song, Perfect Circle. I’m not even mentioning the songs that are so bad that I deleted them from my hard drive so I’d never have to hear them again.

Incidentally, it’s been about two years since the appearance of Underworld: Evolution. The third movie should be lurching forth soon enough so that we may drive a stake through its heart and a silver bullet through its eye, thus killing the cumbersome franchise dead for good.

I need to get the Crow movie soundtrack [I think]. Maybe I should watch the Crow original movie too…