Frozen Alive

This is it guys! This is the long awaited why to see Obituary live. Forget about that disgusting and boring ‘Dead’ on audio only. Apart from the boring set played back then, mainly due to they were promoting Back from the Dead with the well known consequences the sound was really raw, and in this case I say this sadly, because death metal is supposed to sound raw but powerful. Unfortunately, they couldn’t achieve a deadly sound (pun intended) on that live album.

Thus here comes ‘Frozen alive’. It is funny that it took almost 8 years since Back from the Dead and the band splitting up, even a reunion when they were already legends to record a worthy DVD.

So what we’ve got here is a killer set list of the songs we’ve been expecting, saying ‘Back to One’, ‘Find the arise’, ‘Internal bleeding’ etc. We obviously get the regular live songs they have been playing for years but the good thing is that now they sound powerful, deadly…in other words, they way they should. They own the stage as if they never went on a hiatus. The way John rules the stage is worthy of mentioning because he simply doesn’t talk to the crowd and surprisingly is not necessary. The band maintains the interest in the crowd even with the lack of communication.

The production and sound mixing is actually very good allowing enjoying all the instruments and all songs sound absolute killer. The green lights set the tone for the gloom atmosphere and enhancing the Frozen in Time ambience.

Certainly there are elements of several genres in here, such as killer death metal in ‘Chopped in half’ and ‘Slowly we rot’. There are doomy songs such as ‘By the Light’ and ‘Back from the dead’. Thus, there is a lot of everything for everybody from the Obis catalog here. The only thing I kind of regret is that when Allen plays the solos, they are barely heard. Certainly there is not much technique in the solos since the majority of them are vibrato and long chords without any sense of shredding. That is ok ON the studio albums but here they can be barely heard which is a pity for Allen.
Most important for me is Don Tardy’s performance. I must say that he is yet one of my favorites. He plays the songs just as the albums. He does not like to over perform or be a clown on stage. He knows the songs, he plays them the best and without any doubt, just like the studio albums. I enjoy his groove approach and this is the best opportunity to see him playing and enjoying.

As pointed about before by the other reviewer the extras are but shit. The drum solo from Don in Poland is utter crap, worthy of the cheapest bootleg. The video clips are…for the lack of better words…utters crap since one is basically the guys playing in yellow/sepia colored video. The other one is the song played live with some arrangements. The interviews go nowhere since the guys seem to be responding to an idiot interviewer and without any sense of proper journalism, even for a video of this magnitude.

Other than these little aspects this is quite an enjoyable DVD and the absolute best way to enjoy the Obis live. You get a good song set list, good production, good sound, killer atmosphere and what else but amazing and flawlessly performed groove death metal.

After Obituary's eight year pause from the metal scene, the legendary Florida death metal band recorded and released the satisfying "Frozen In Time," one of the band's best records since "World Demise." Soon after the album crashed into the CD players of metalheads, Obituary embarked on a world tour that eventually led them to Poland's capital. The show in Warsaw was a different Obituary concert because the band brought a handful of cameramen with to record their first ever DVD, "Frozen Alive."

The set list on "Frozen Alive" contains most of the "Frozen In Time" album with a slab of classic Obituary tracks including "Chopped In Half" and "Slowly We Rot. I personally love "Frozen In Time," so seeing seven tracks from it is really cool to watch. The rest of the set is made up of material from every record released by Obituary. The band's stage appearance is usually exciting to watch as they continue to headbang and move around the stage while not looking stupid or cliché. The audio and visual quality couldn't be better for this show as everything from Allen West's solos to John Tardy's parched growls are heard and seen perfectly. Overall, the set list on this DVD is great and Obituary's energetic stage presence along with the stellar production helps the concert portion of "Frozen Alive" avoid any kind of boredom.

There are some extra features packed into this DVD including interviews with most of the band members, music videos, documentaries, and a drum solo, but the problem is they aren't very good. The interviews have the band members talking about Obituary's eight year hiatus, touring, writing new material and future recording plans among other interesting topics. The music vidoes aren't anything special because they just show the band playing "Insane" and "On The Floor" without any point or meaning (I personally don't care for music videos, but if you do, you might like these clips).

The documentaries just consist of mediocre camera footage of the band recording the video for "Insane" and some backstage footage after their show in Warsaw. The drum solo is the most disappointing part of this DVD because it sounds so promising upon hearing about it, yet seeing it is a totally different story. The solo was filmed with awful audio and visual quality on a camera placed way in the back of the arena; everything was caught in its whole and complete form, yet the struggle to understand what's going on isn't worth watching it. Beside the interviews, the extra material can simply be thrown away.

"Frozen Alive" is both a blessing and a curse. It has some great moments like the concert and the interviews, but it also has a load of mediocre junk like the drum solo and the music videos. If you want to see a fantastic Obituary performance, you should consider buying "Frozen Alive," but be forewarned: you won't be enjoying most of the stuff that comes with it.

This review was written for: http://www.Thrashpit.com