WEDNESDAY 13

"Straight from the soundboard" is usually a good sign that a live album will be of value. For certain segments of rockers, both old and young, a live performance is now an opportunity to use enough technology that one doesn't need to play his or her parts in full. Pulling a recording straight from the knob-twiddlers who were there is now the best path to authenticity. For seemingly ageless horror rocker Wednesday 13 and his eponymous band, the proof is in the proverbial pudding for the newest live foray, "Un-Alive From Pol'and'Rock 2025".

Recorded last summer at Czaplinek-Broczyno Airfield in the Polish village of Broczyno at the Pol'and'Rock Festival, "Un-Alive…" is a brisk run through a good chunk of Wednesday 13's catalog, along with the appropriate MURDERDOLLS cover thrown in. Sonically, WEDNESDAY 13 (the band) are heavier than on record. There's metallic weight to "Too Fast For Blood" as well as "In Misery", which is taken from the band's most recent studio outing, "Mid Death Crisis". In this age of overly polished productions, the backing vocals on "Too Fast For Blood" being nearly clipped is an almost welcome sound.

Wednesday 13 (the singer, whose real name is Joseph Michael Poole) remains one of the better singers of his ilk. He's got such a natural gravel to him; he's like a constantly snarling Alice Cooper. It makes for some jumpy, rousing, sing-along choruses (with backing vocals),namely on the crunchy "When The Devil Commands", which is the best song Rob Zombie never wrote. The inclusion of the punk-metal slam bang of "Good Day To Be A Bad Guy" is also a smart move; the same applies to their cover of Roky Erickson's "I Walked With A Zombie".

The set closes with the raucous "Bad Things" (taken from the band's 2005 "Transylvania 90210: Songs Of Death, Dying, And The Dead" debut) and the prerequisite cover of MURDERDOLLS' "I Love To Say Fuck", which generates the appropriate call and response from the Polish throng.

The state of live albums remains in flux because of YouTube. However, releases like "Un-Alive From Pol'and'Rock 2025" are justified by outfits as tight as WEDNESDAY 13: they are the embodiment of road dogs who, at the moment, continue to maintain their place as perhaps the best horror rock / metal band.