Of the recent batch of mutoid metal tapes that came from Hospital Productions (which also includes Time Crypt, Terrorism and Vegas Martyrs, all of which are fucking great), the one that is most identifiable as being "black metal" is the one from the shadowy underground unit Curved Blade. Be Like Death certainly looks like a black metal tape with its high contrast black and white cover and morbid title, and the murky racket the band produces is staunchly old school, while at the same time infusing its sound with the sort of noise-damaged weirdness that we'd expect from something released by Dominick Fernow (Hospital boss and the guy behind Prurient and Ash Pool). The a-side of the cassette is simply titled "Part One" and serves up some somber death worship with it's beautifully murky intro of dark strings and keys, unleashing a deep buzzing drone with tendrils of feedback creeping in, and then the band enters, breaking into a moody mid-paced blackened dirge with deep gasping shrieks, a droning melancholic riff, the sound low fi and mangy basement black metal. But beneath all of the grime and murk, it's also really dramatic sounding, with droning keys and out of tune violins giving it a sort of diseased stateliness. The second side is a heavier Hellhammer-style crusher, pure primitive black metal with strange bell-like sounds (that might just be a clanking guitar, it's hard to tell) and odd keyboard sounds and violins lurking beneath the crushing low-fi slime. But then just when you think the song has come to an end, it shifts into a strange ambient sprawl of room hiss and field recordings of what sounds like rainfall, followed by a morose keyboard melody looping over distant thunder.