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Various Artists: Metal Mania 2005 (DVD)
 The Metal Mania Festival is one of the most well-known events of its kind to come about in Heavy Metal music history. This 190 minute DVD brings you to the front stage without costing you the plane fare to Poland to see it in person and offers you several performances from 11 of the bands who appeared. While it is only a sampling of them I found that you are able to form some opinions on the bands if you are not entirely up on their background. I feel the inclusion of more than one track apiece allows you to better enjoy and perhaps gain a little added interest in the groups that will prompt you to look deeper into a few of them. There are only two tracks from Amon Amarth and Pain, but these groups have full-length DVD's of their own which makes this portion of the film a little bit of a prompt to the viewer to seek them out. Amon Amarth is a true band of Metal Vikings who really deliver, while Pain is fronted by Peter Tagtgren of Hypocrisy (who is serving up a Gothic Industrial vibe with this group). The tracks from Napalm Death speed by like you expect from this HardCore influenced Metal group and Dark Funeral, who get 4 songs really failed to do it for me. Some Black Metal is powerful and interesting but I was truly unimpressed by their performance and delivery on this one. One of the greatest segments ends up as the closer with cello-bearing rockers Apocalyptica who do two of their originals and one Metallica cover. If you never thought cello players could be cool just wait until you see Apocalyptica perform. They truly showcase some of the limitless direction Metal music can take and I hope a full-length performance piece comes out from them soon. The bands are all using the same stage equipment it seems in many cases so there is very little visual dramatics to enjoy besides creative lighting and camera work.
A bonus CD is included for you to enjoy a little more of what happened at the Festival. The 12 bands showcased here performed on the side stage (much like the second stage of Ozzfest). Here is a rundown of the bands on this 52 minute CD: Thunderbolt, Hermh, Hedfirst, Hell-Born, Quo Vadis, Pyorrhoea, Supreme Lord, Mess Age, Abused Majesty, Naumachia, Ded By Dawn, & Valinor. I would have liked to see a little more of a booklet with this release documenting more of the Festival and a complete rundown of the bands who played. This could have served as some worthy bonus features for while they do have some with information on what appears there is not much outside of the realm of the DVD contents. Overall there is enough to enjoy for most Metal fans.
Band Listing DVD
Darzamat
Dies Irae
ANJ
Amon Amarth
Dark Funeral
The Haunted
Pain
Arcturus
Turbo
Napalm Death
Apocalyptica
Added: July 20th 2006
Reviewer: Ken Pierce
Score:  
Related Link: Metal Mania Website
Hits: 3927
Language: english
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Various Artists: Metal Mania 2005 (DVD)
Posted by Pete Pardo, SoT Staff Writer on 2006-07-20 20:12:04
My Score:
Expertly shot document of 2005's Metal Mania Festival in Poland that will either please or disappoint the viewer depending on your opinion of the line-up assembled. There's some great bands included here, included the kings of Viking Metal Amon Amarth, black metal titans Dark Funeral (four songs though?), Peter Tagtgren's Pain, the avant-garde black metal sylings of Arcturus, the classical metal of Apocalyptica, and the crushing hardcore/grindcore veterans Napalm Death. Honestly though, I would have liked one more songs each from a few of these bands, and limit the awful ANJ and Dies Irae to one song each. Even the little known Darzamat, who have an interesting male/female death metal thing going, only get one song, and even though the song included here, "Storm" is a little annoying, it would have been nice to see another tune from them. Ironically, perhaps the best set here is from Swedish metal behemoths The Haunted, whose Gothenburg sounds are a far cry from most of the bands on the bill here. The two tracks included, "Abysmal" and "Nothing Right", come across almost like American metalcore, but are crushing and absolutely filled with metal might. The same can be said for Pain, whose techno-gothic metal sees Peter Tagtgren going completely opposite from the usually death metal style that he employs with his other band Hypocrisy. Amidst all the black and death metal here, Pain's two songs are a nice respite smack in the middle of this DVD.
Arcturus treats us to two tracks here, "Painting My Horror" and "Ad Absurdum", and if you've never heard this band, you'll get a kick out of their theatrical, avant-garde & symphonic take on black metal. See if you recognize the singer Vortex, who is also the bass player for Dimmu Borgir. Arcturus is truly a progressive band, as evident by these two tracks included here. I've never heard of Turbo before, but I'm assuming this aging power metal band are Polish judging by the crowd response, and there are three songs included here. And what can you say about the metallic cellos of Apocalyptica? Truly a unique band and unique sound, perhaps a little out of place here but entertaining nontheless.
There's a bonus CD included in this set with bands who performed at the second stage of the festival. None are household names or really noteworthy, but it helps give the overall package a good sampling of all the bands at the festival. If you like many of the groups who were at the festival there will be much to enjoy in this set.
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