ARCH ENEMY – Live Apocalypse

Every self-respecting band should have a DVD out these days, that’s what it seems like at least, and finally the Swedish shooting stars Arch Enemy have issued their first offering. Live Apocalypse features a total of 21 live tracks, as well as a rich display of extra material –- two tour reports, gear talks, reports from promotional video shoots, five music videos, as well as the option of seeing three of the live tracks from multiple angles. In other words, there’s enough material in this two-disc package to keep fans busy for a long time, and when the sound quality is top notch and the band performs as great as you’d expect them to, everything’s all pure gutter ‘n’ glory, right?

To some extent it is, yes (you expected a “no” here, right?). What’s good about this DVD is indeed good enough to overshadow the bad bits… as there are, unquestionably so, bad bits. For your convenience and reading pleasure, these can be listed right here –- “Silent Wars,” “Instinct,” and “Savage Messiah”. The brighter ones out there would probably have noticed a pattern here –- these are namely the titles of several of the tracks from the band’s 2001 release Wages Of Sin, the band’s first release with singer Angela Gossow and by miles and miles their weakest album. Whether or not it’s done to mark Gossow’s arrival, or perhaps to shut up those who still miss Johan Liiva once and for all is open to debate, but it’s a fact, and a damn shame that these tracks are included in this package. With a discography like Arch Enemy’s, is shouldn’t be necessary to skip tracks when they release what should be a “best of” compilation, but it’s almost like that now.

This is even more ridiculous when Burning Bridges, one of the band’s very best, is snubbed off with just one track -– “The Immortal.” This track is, of course, amazing, but for some reason –- again, is this reason called Johan Liiva? –- this album is basically always overlooked when Arch Enemy composes their live sets. Obviously, it makes sense to emphasize Wages Of Sin on the tour supporting this album, but to choose footage from that tour, which was over some five years ago, to create a DVD in 2006 seems pretty awkward. What’s good about this, though, is that Christopher Amott -– band co-founder, shredder, and Michael Amott’s brother -– plays guitar during the majority of the songs on this release. If the reason the band’s chosen such aged recordings is that they wanted to honour Chris, it suddenly makes more sense, as his fiery playing and clever songwriting was a great asset to the band.

Despite the rants of this review, this DVD is in fact a compulsory buy for every fan of the band -– and most of you probably own them already, but those unfamiliar with Arch Enemy should probably begin with the studio albums (preferably Burning Bridges, Black Earth, or Doomsday Machine). Eventually, then, buy Live Apocalypse just to hear the Amott brothers play together one final time, to hear “Bridge Of Destiny” in a live setting (those were the days …), and, of course, enjoy the sights (and sounds, duh) of Angela Gossow on stage. Just remember not to be afraid to use the “skip next” button from time to time …