Music Videos

One Shining Moment and One Supremely Ironic/Satiric Moment

The past couple of days I've actually had some time to take a look at two live metal vids -- the new one from Slayer and the new one from SYL

Slayer - Still Reigning DVD: A+

I think that I was mostly disappointed with War at the Warfield, it was really Slayer going through the motions and the camming was so mechanical and did not capture the dynamism of the 80s preeminent speed/evil metal band

Well, after swearing off Slayer vids forever, I was intrigued by their decision to film a live performance of all the tracks of the all-time thrash classic Reign in Blood -- side note, boy, Rick Rubin did a lot in the mid-80s -- and then disappeared -- back on point, I was intrigued by the promise of a blood shower part of the show -- and this DVD does not disappoint on all fronts

Anyways, I started off by watching the extra concert footage -- surprised to find Tom being more chatty and funny than he has been on vid lately -- almost Dio-ish lately, but this time comfortable and commanding -- All the other stuff live was just amazing, the videography on this one is pretty cool with angles, cuts, and getting that Slayer vibe

I think the other thing that bothered me about the 2002 live vid was that Tom's voice sounded like shit -- hey, it may be audio engineering but on this new one he sounds good -- the mix sounds great -- and the playing is tight

And Reign in Blood track by track live is still 28 minutes of powerful awesome metal -- an all time classic of the genre -- this DVD is a testament that Slayer still can bring it

Strapping Young Lad: For Those Aboot to Rock (Live at the Commodore) DVD

The interesting thing about this band is that they are like the Radiohead of extreme metal -- very edgy, widely respected, and it's hard to tell when they are serious or not because they blow up all metal cliches while still playing metal

The satire, the irony -- the blistering metal -- SYL is one the front runners of the current metal scene -- very entertaining, very heavy, very tight

I liked it a lot, of course, SYL is not what most people would call eminently listenable