| CD REVIEW Avenged Sevenfold |
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Band : Avenged Sevenfold After 4 studio albums (three of which I had the good fortune to review – find City Of Evil posted 30/06/2005 and the band's self-titled and most recent album posted 02/12/2007) with which this Huntington Beach based Californian band gave a perfect display of their love for both Hardcore and Heavy Metal (the successful combination of which almost immediately put them of the top of the NWoAHM scene), it was about time for a decent DVD by these guys. Well, actually the guys already released a first DVD in July of last year, but we were never sent All Excess (besides, it only contained footage of 5 live tracks, 4 video clips, 3 "making of" videos and some behind-the-scene stuff) for review, so the fact kinda passed us by unnoticed (we're usually up to our necks into new releases to review anyway, you know). Live At The LBC contains a full concert's footage, as recorded on April 10 of this year at Long Beach's Long Beach Arena, complete with all the trimmings one might expect from a truly well-backed band. Top level technology provides the cleanest of sounds and big video screens which were not only used to display the show but also to project some additional footage (intro video to "Scream", intro video to "encore" track and concert closer "A Little Piece Of Heaven"), pyrotechnics add to the showmanship of the guys, and big bucks even provided four exotic dancers doing their thing during the performance of "Scream". Not surprisingly, the bulk of the material (beingconcertopener "Critical Acclaim", "Afterlife", "Scream", "Almost Easy", "Gunslinger" – which I had thought to be a critical judgement on the US' warfaring outside of their own territories, but apparently is a tribute to it –, and lengthy concert closer "A Little Piece Of Heaven") comes off the last self-titled album. The set is complemented with 3 tracks ("Beast And The Harlot", "Seize The Day", and "Bat Country") off 2005's "City Of Evil" and a couple of older tracks ("Second Heartbeat" off Waking The Fallen and "Unholy Confessions" off debut album Sounding The Seventh Trumpet), plus a rendition of Pantera's "Walk"...for which they invite someone from the crowd to sing the song, as lead singer M. Shadows "happens" to have a sore throat at that moment. Of course it's all part of a studied and rehearsed program...except perhaps for Matteo's participation. Besides, the whole show exhúdes professionalism from start to finish. Every now and again the guys had someone in the backstage pushing a button to add some sound additions, and that most evidently so with concert closer "A Little Piece Of Heaven", which includes passages where the guitarists don't even use their instruments as the music played are mainly strings...and additional choirs. I dó have to say that the band's own vocal performance on said track is simply incredible. I mean, they simply pull off re-creating the same multi-layered thing as on the studio recording, you know! Okay, let's talk bonus features for the DVD!!! What with the big screens apparently being a steady feature to the band's performances on tour, they were able to put on quickly filmed clips in the backstages, telling the audience it was only 15 minutes to curtains-up! So, what you get is a collection of these shorties (for a total of 18:40), and as you will see a lot of them are simple variations on a theme. But then again, I'm sure that the people who were present at any given location of that US tour will dearly appreciate being able to see that silly flick again...if only to get a recall of the feeling of exhileration and anticipation (s)he was getting at the time! Addtionally, you get the footage of the intro video for "Scream", and the encore. But wait...that ain't all! Because there's a bonus CD here, you know, and it's a really interesting one...because besides containing alternate versions to the last album's "Almost Easy" and "Afterlife", you not only get covers of Pantera's "Walk" (this time with M. Shadows singing himself!) and Iron Maiden's "Flash Of The Blade" (let's not forget that A7X toured with that band last year), you also get a total of 7 previously unrecorded bonus tracks...which brings the total length of this little bonus CD to almost 54 minutes. Leftovers? The results of a sudden creative outburst of the guys? Doesn't matter, because each and every one of these songs would've deserved a place on a regular A7X album! In fact, the bonus CD alone justifies the purchase of this package. If you've (re-)read the reviews I did on the band's previous albums, you may have noticed I was somewhat harsh on last year's record? Well, let me retract that judgement here and now...because when push came to shove the album eventually did make my year-lists as an essential purchase, you know! Now when it comes down to this specific package, I was at first taken aback about the road to follow, because the bonus CD along deserves a really high rating (as does the DVD, by the way – only rarely do such professional live recordings see the light of day), but when push comes to shove (again, hahah) this still is a DVD package, see? And we don't rate DVDs, see? But you'll remember my positive judgement of the thing and go and get a copy for yourself, won't you? Tony. |