Have you ever heard of Finnish metal act Before the Dawn? Neither had until this disk landed in the mailbox. I admit, I was curious. I have enjoyed numerous European metal bands before, they have a sound that is distinctly not American. There is still a thriving metal scene across the pond, they don't have a market inundated with nu-metal like we have here.The First Chapter is comprised of three concerts, two in their entirety. The first one up is "Night of the Arts in Lathi" from 2004. This is an outdoor concert where they play a near 50 minute set. The performance is good, although it seemed to take them awhile to get warmed up. The crowd seemed to give them a warm reception, or at least those int he front did, the camera panned to the rear of the crowd a couple of times and many of the people did not seem all that interested. The band displayed a tight stage presence, which was hurt by poor editing, while one guy was singing, we would see the other singer/guitarist just standing there. other times there would be a solo and we'd be focused on the bass player. Fortunately, the sound emanating from my speakers was enough to keep me entertained. By the end of their set, the band was definitely in a groove playing their brand of melodic sludge.
The second show is the "Tuska Open Air After Party" from 2003. This is the better of the two full sets presented here. It is amazing the difference a year can make in terms of live performances from young bands, I have noted similar phenomena in local acts I have seen multiple times. The biggest problem with this show is that there is about 9 minutes of the band in the back before they start, and there are no subtitles to tell me what they are saying! Fortunately, once they hit the stage, all is well as we are given a very good performance from the band.
The third segment of live footage is called "Rehearsal Room Jamming." It is actually another 20 minutes of the band playing live, in what appears to be a small club. Not much of a rehearsal room, if you ask me. The playing is decent,, not at the same level as in the first two, but still good. Too bad that it cuts out as abruptly as it does.
There are two more options to choose. One is called "The Road to Hamburg." This starts off with a little broken English showing where you can have sex and buy drugs, but the majority of the time they are speaking their native language, and I have no idea what they are talking about. Subtitles may have made this segment worthwhile, without them, there is no reason for me to continue watching it. Finally, there is a photo gallery with 99 pictures and it plays automatically, backed by crowd noise.
Being my first exposure to this band, I enjoyed the music a lot. It has a well balanced mix of heavy sludge and melody, reminiscent of In Flames. The combination of twin singers and twin guitars offers up a varied listening experience. The dual guitars offers the opportunity for a fuller, heavier sound. The two vocalists, one growling and one singing, also do a good job playing off each other. Drums and bass provider a solid backbeat and rhythm. There is also a keyboard player adding another texture to the palate of sound.
The concert footage is not the best quality, it looks as if it were shot on videotape. Colors are muted and sometimes the image is a little fuzzy, but it does the job. The video itself is in a ratio of 1.33:1. The audio is also towards the lower end of the spectrum, it is in 2.0 Dolby Digital, and does a decent job, but you can tell it is a live recording, the mix isn't that balanced with mostly the vocals getting buried a bit too far down in the mix.
I do have some major complaints about the disk structure. First off, it would have been nice to include a play all option. The first concert, when chosen, brings you to a song selection menu, or you can play the entire set, once the set concludes, the disk stops on a white screen and you have to press your remote's menu button to get back to the song selection, which has no option to go back to the main menu. Now, if your DVD player is anything like mine, it has a bit of memory so you can pick up where you left off when powered off/on, because of this I was unable to get back to the main menu. I had to start another DVD, then put this back in to get to the main menu, this is entirely unacceptable. The other issue is the second convert has a total time of nearly an hour and one chapter, that's right, one chapter. These issues, mainly the menu problem, put a damper on my enjoyment of the solid music presented here.
Bottomline. The music is very good, the live performances are good as well. The disk introduced me to a new band to seek out, and that is always a good thing. Sadly, there are some major issues, from the basic, like having subtitles, to the extreme, like the menu problem. I have a hard time giving a strong recommendation to a shoddy DVD production. At the same time, I can't discount the quality music.
Mild Recommendation.
More Information at: Rare Lyrics: Blogcritics.
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