Arch Enemy - Live Apocalypse review
| Band: | Arch Enemy |
| Album: | Live Apocalypse |
| Style: | Gothenburg metal |
| Release date: | July 27, 2006 |
| Guest review by: | Remus |
Disc I
London, 17.12.2004:
01. Tear Down The Walls
02. Enemy Within
03. Silent Wars
04. Burning Angel
05. Dead Eyes See No Future
06. Dead Bury Their Dead
07. Bury Me An Angel
08. Drum Solo
09. Instinct
10. Savage Messiah
11. The First Deadly Sin
12. The Immortal
13. Bridge Of Destiny
14. We Will Rise
15. Heart Of Darkness
16. Snowbound
17. Ravenous
18. Fields Of Desolation
Manchester, 12.12.2005:
19. Nemesis
20. My Apocalypse
21. Skeleton Dance
Disc II
Promo videos:
01. Ravenous
02. We Will Rise
03. Nemesis
04. My Apocalypse
Multi-Angle:
05. Dead Eyes See No Future
06. Bury Me An Angel
07. Heart Of Darkness
Special Futures:
08. Tour! Tour! Tour!
09. UK Tour
10. Gear Talk
11. My Apocalypse Interviews
12. Slide Show
After all the success Arch Enemy has been enjoying after employing Angela Gossow as the band's lead singer, it was only the obvious thing to do to please their loyal fans by releasing a DVD featuring one of their live performances. It is entitled "Live Apocalypse" and it comprises of two discs - one with the main live show and another with videos, photos and slideshows to keep the fans entertained for a long while.
So onto the main feature - a live show recorded at The London Forum. The venue is quite impressive, with chandeliers hanging from the ceiling and it's not packed with a 50,000 strong Ozzfest-like crowd but it's not small either - a medium venue. The band kicks off with the trade-mark piano intro to "Enemy Within" after which the song itself is performed. The set list is made up of eight songs from "Wages Of Sin", four from "Anthems Of Rebellion" and one song from each of their other albums (except Doomsday Machine). The performance is amazing, the drums are powerful and guitar-riffs executed with excellent accuracy and devoid of mistakes. Angela's screaming is good but not as impressive as her deep growls. It must be noted that at that time Chris Amott was still in the band. He played rhythm/lead guitar on this show. "Bridge Of Destiny" and "Bury Me An Angel" are the two gems of the show being played with tremendous power. Overall, a truly amazing show which is captured immaculately on DVD format.
Extra features? Well, it has all of their promo videos (except for "The Immortal"), one interview with all the members, two videos where Daniel and Michael talk about their gear and a couple of vids featuring the band's on-tour antics. The director's cut version of "Nemesis" is quite impressive.
So, accomplished camera-work, astounding performance from the band, lots of extra features, any cons? Well, yes - the production values. Andy Sneap did his best to edit the main show but unfortunately it got to the point where it sounds like this is a studio recording - not a live show. It's good if you love clean production values but I would have enjoyed something a bit more rough, which would do a better job of capturing the live atmosphere.
Live Apocalypse has everything an Arch Enemy fan could ask for (even a couple of live songs where Fredrik Akesson plays guitar) and it won't disappoint. A must-have if you're a fan. It gets 1.5 points subtracted because of the "perfect production" values.
Rating breakdown
| Performance: | 9 |
| Songwriting: | - |
| Originality: | - |
| Production: | 8 |
Written by Remus | 28.09.2007
Guest review disclaimer:
This is a guest review, which means it does not necessarily represent the point of view of the MS Staff.
This is a guest review, which means it does not necessarily represent the point of view of the MS Staff.
Comments
Comments: 10
Visited by: 30 users
| Katatronik Angel of Lust Posts: 1018  |
Agree with your review, great live performance, amazing, but with a studio-production which sweeps the live feeling away...
---- "The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown." Howard Phillips Lovecraft
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| BloodTears ANA-thema Elite Posts: 11835  |
Well there's no doubt that it is an amazing DVD. I like the setlist (although I would change 2 songs at least) and I think the band shows how good their are. And if you notice, the crowd is insane which helps the show. About the extras, I think its always interesting to see the band off-stage. Oh and my dvd came with a poster too.
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| Remus Posts: 711  |
Written by BloodTears on 30.09.2007 at 13:18 Actually, Angela doesn't really know what's going on during some parts of "Dead Bury their Dead" and "The First Deadly Sin" but overall - excellent performance! What songs would you have changed? And mine came with a poster too but it sucks so i didn't put it up.
---- Procrastinate, NOW!
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| BloodTears ANA-thema Elite Posts: 11835 |
Written by Remus on 30.09.2007 at 19:11 I didnt put the poster up either lol About the songs I would change, I would substitute "instinct" with "beast of man" (mainly to pay homage to their earlier carrier) and play the whole "fields of desolation" song, they only played the end of the song. That part sounds great but I really like the rest of the song too.
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| Remus Posts: 711 |
^Yeah, i think they should have played more stuff from Stigmata/Burning Bridges/Black Earth but hey! It still looked like the crowd had an awesome time!
---- Procrastinate, NOW!
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| bkrownd Posts: 47  |
I like this concert DVD a LOT. The bonus material DVD is occasionally interesting, such as the interviews and gear descriptions. My only real complaint is in the longer London concert the guitarist growls over Angela's otherwise wonderful vocals! Aaarrrrghghghgh! Blasphemy! In the shorter concert this doesn't happen. I love Angela's voice with this kind of music. Otherwise, the music is wonderful. The video is good, but it would have been much better if they had let the camera linger longer on each of the members, instead of jumping around quickly.
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| Dangerboner Lactation Cnslt Posts: 7262  |
My only complaint about this DVD is the fact that they played We Will Rise.
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| Remus Posts: 711 |
^ Yeah, that's quite an emo song, they could have played Cosmic Retribution or somethingelse instead.
---- Procrastinate, NOW!
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| AyΣm Posts: 287  |
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| BloodTears ANA-thema Elite Posts: 11835 |
They have to play it, it became one of their best known songs. It's like going to a Priest concert and not hearing "Breaking the Law" basically.
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