Review Summary: For any Avenged Sevenfold fan.
Avenged Sevenfold is one of the best bands on the planet at this moment in my opinion. A lot of people like to call them sell-outs because they have nothing else to do. The eponymous cd wasn't a sell-out, it was just different from what the band displayed before. It was indeed very good, going through the country-ballad ''Dear God'', the beautiful and rocking ''Brompton Cocktail'', the superbly written ''Afterlife'' and the epic ''A Little Piece of Heaven''. It wasn't as good as City Of Evil (which is one of my favorite albums of all-time) but it still kicked some major a**.
A lot of good songs were rejected in the making of the album and the band decided to include them with a live DVD. To make it simple, this dvd/cd is awesome!
The DVD: A lot of songs of the self-titled and City of Evil. Also with 2 songs from Waking The Fallen and a cover (Walk by Pantera). Before I bought this dvd, i never saw a live performance from these guys. When I watched it i was blown away! The performance is just perfect, even if the vocals overpower the guitars sometimes (Shadows performance is still pitch-perfect). The song selection is good and the cover is pretty cool (they make a guy come on stage to sing the song and he does a solid job).
My only problems with this DVD are the useless cursing and the fact that the camera can't stay at the same angle for more than 2 seconds. I got used to it though. 8.5/10
The CD: 7 b-sides, 2 covers and 2 remixes.
Songs: They are nothing genius but they all deserve some play time. ''Demons'' and ''Crossroads'' are the heaviest ones, and they are highly enjoyable songs. ''Demons'' is 2 minutes too long and ''Crossroads'' has pretty bad lyrics but the instrumentation is great. ''Girl i Know'' and ''Dancing Dead'' are straight-forward hard-rock and may be the best songs on the album (Dancing Dead has one of the most technical solo synyster gates has ever came up with). The others (Tension, Until The End and The fight) are nothing special but still they are listenable. 7.5/10
Covers: I am probably going to get some comments for that but Flash of The Blade is better than the original (or the chorus at least). They don't get any credit for writing the song but the execution is better in my opinion. Walk is a bit less good but still great. Shadows just doesn't sound as natural and raw as Phil from Pantera. Good stuff, very good stuff. 8.5/10
Remixes: Useless! Almost Easy vocals don't even sound normal, computerized a lot and the instrumentation is exactly the same . Afterlife adds boring orchestration and just makes me want to listen to the original even more so there is no point to it. 4/10
In conclusion: This review was pretty short because this album isn't the most important in the world. Still, you get the idea that this package is made for fans and very well made. The DVD or the cd themselves are great, so to have them both at the same time is worth the buy.
P.S.: I'm a french canadian so please excuse my english.
