Dark Tranquillity: Where Death is Most Alive
Packed to the gills with live performances, archival clips and documentary footage, Where Death Is Most Alive is an immensely gratifying look back at one of the most consistent bands in all of metal.
Reviews – Visual
Thin Lizzy: Are You Ready? DVD
Are You Ready? is an interesting visual document of Thin Lizzy during what is one of the lowest periods of their original run. While the band was still a good live act and a decent draw, by the time they released their Chinatown album in 1981 there were many cracks in the machine that spurred the band on. Filmed live in Loreley, Germany by WDR for their Rockpalast program, one of the coolest live music programs on the planet, this nineteen song set is good but not great.
Anvil: The Story of Anvil
Anvil: The Story of Anvil is such a compelling, amazing film that you don’t need to know anything about these dudes going into it to absolutely get sucked into it. Big time. And now that it is available on DVD as well, I really think that everyone that reads Hellbound.ca needs to get the fuck off their ass and go out and at least rent this for a night and watch it.
Sean Palmerston reviews the new DVD issue of the best rock and roll documentary of 2009.
Hansel: Lorentzian Lineshaper CD Release Party Live DVD
Like the album Lorentzian Lineshaper, this performance dates from 2006 – Hansel’s first live appearance on Canadian soil (or a Torontonian basement bar, if you want to be more precise). The set list delves further back, delivering a (then) eight-year-old acoustic ditty alongside tracks from 2003’s Respond_Violence and some newer material.
Rotting Christ: Non Serviam: A 20 Year Apocryphal Story DVD/CD
Rotting Christ’s first DVD (In Domine Sathana) is barely a half decade old but the band’s 20th anniversary seems reason enough for another multimedia release. Non Serviam is a weighty package: two DVDs and two CDs of material arranged around a monumental live centre-piece – a two and a half hour performance in Athens, Greece, recorded at the end of 2007.
Death Angel: Sonic German Beatdown DVD
Germany is famous for its beer drinking, festival loving rabid heavy metal fans. This is where Bay Area thrash giants Death Angel filmed their very first live DVD showcasing two energetic sets in which the band perform their most mosh-worthy classics.
Augury: Fragmentary Evidence
From the opening explosion sound effect, the Montreal band launch into a slew of technical death metal tracks with a definite black metal influence. Deep growled vocals that rise into high-pitched shrieks accompany some precision guitar playing, but things rarely stay in one particular groove for long.
Quick VIEWs: August 7, 2009
The following metal/hard rock reviews were published yesterday in Hamilton’s VIEW Magazine and while they are online, it is with a bunch of indie rock reviews so I decided to throw just the metal/hard rock-related ones up on Hellbound…
Metal Blade Records: 25th Anniversary DVD
Filmed live at the Palladium in Worchester MA in April of 2007, this historic DVD document is a great snapshot of stalwart US indie label Metal Blade’s then-current roster.
Gillan: The Glory Years
This neat retrospective release revisits Deep Purple vocalist Ian Gillan’s early ’80s solo band at the height of their success.