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Thrash...from Anthrax to Venom
A three hour DVD, whose main feature is a 100 minute programme taking us through the history of thrash metal.
The big names we all know about, especially with the new Metallica album topping the charts. But even Metallica are a million miles from their own roots, and this uses new and old footage, and new interviews with names big and small. Exodus and Overkill and Sodom are all featured early on, and even Metallica's Lars Ulrich explaining how bands loved and lived by vinyl, but used tapes and demos for marketing much like bands use the internet is used now.
Metal Blade are amongst the labels who kicked the whole scene, and there's a piece on the Metal Massacre LP, featuring Metallica's first ever recording. Scott Ian (Anthrax), Kirk Hammett and Death Angel and many more are interviewed on screen.
Bands talk about the scene's roots, from Black Sabbath, Motorhead and Judas Priest up to Iron Maiden and Venom. Classic albums are talked about, bands are shown live. Think Anthrax 'Among The Living', a genuine classic.
The story continues through crossover and hardcore, bands like Suicidal Tendencies, and then up to the present day through the likes of Pantera.
It's interesting, informative, and will be essential viewing to many, with a good mix of vintage (some unseen) and new footage, including big name interviews. But there is too much of a montage approach and the Americanised staccato voice over (think film trailers). Also, as we can all appreciate, every music scene is plagued to an extent by crap music and assholes, thrash a lot more than most, all highlighted here too, if inadvertently. However, the few genuine classics to emerge have stood the test of time.
The whole show is probably a bit too tedious though, for all but the most hardcore.
***
Review by Joe Geesin
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