LIVE & ARCHIVES

Live & Archives is a post release from Psychotic Waltz. The band sadly broke up after the Bleeding tour due to both musical differences and a strained economy. The band members have since then taken part in bands like Darkstar, Deadsoul Tribe, Teabag and Cage.

Live & Archives is a two CD set and as the title suggests the first CD is a live concert recorded in Hamburg Germany in 1991 on the tour supporting their debut album A Social Grace. This is not a well produced live album that has been altered in the studio afterwards to correct errors but rather a bootleg recording with a pretty bad sound quality, audience noise ( you can actually hear the audience talking german and laughing) and lots of shrieks and feedback. In other words this is exactly how they sounded live take it or leave it.

The second CD is archive recordings which for the most part means raw demo recordings and unfinished songs. There are a few well produced songs on that CD but the majority of the songs are not in a very good recording quality.

CD1:

I saw Psychotic Waltz on both the tour for Mosquito and the tour for Bleeding and I can testify that this is how they sounded live. Those were some of the best concerts of my life. I was a devoted fan at the time ( and still am) and it was like watching godlike creatures play. I have a more relaxed releationship with music today but I still think back on those concerts as something special. The band was tight and there was a special aura surounding Buddy Lackey when he performed. One of the most unique performers in progressive metal ever with his strange snakelike dances and dedicated stage presence. Psychotic Waltz was a very psychadelic progressive metal band and they had clearly smoked weed before going on stage. Both concerts were at Loppen, Christiania, Denmark ( so it´s not wonder why they were stoned). The performance was still powerful and enthusiastic even under the influence of mildly mind altering drugs.

It´s always interesting to hear on a bootleg like recording how a band performs and especially how the singer performs. In the case of this recording the performance is passionate and tight. Buddy Lackey sings with great passion and allthough there is the occasional wrong note this is a great performance.

The concert starts with the Sleeping Dogs intro and then seques into I of the Storm. It´s a powerful performance of that song and a great way to start the set. The first time I listened to this I was a bit shocked because of the bootleg quality but it´s still great.

Halo of Thorns follow and it´s an emotional and passionate performance of one of my favorite Psychotic Waltz songs. Buddy Lackey sings with so much pathos and strength. There are some microphone problems during Halo of Thorns and the microphone cord is changed before the band starts to play Nothing ( it´s the title of the song if anyone should wonder).

Nothing was never my favorite Psychotic Waltz song but it sounds great live. After Nothing Buddy Lackey speaks to the audience while the others tune their instruments ( which is very nessesary if you know how much Brian and Dan use their vibrato arm). He tells the audience that it is both his and the bands birthday today and the crowd sing happy birthday to You with a german accent. So sweet ( LOL). Psychotic Waltz was started on the first of july 1986 and this concerts marks the bands five year birthday.

...And the Devil Cried is next song up and it´s probably the most energetic and thrashy song Psychotic Waltz have ever made. It works very well in this version and you can really hear how tight the band were on stage. Some of the fast sections are drowned in the bootleg sound quality but if you know the songs you´re still able to hear what´s going on.

A Psychotic Waltz and Only in a Dream follow. The first one a power ballad that has always been on of my favorites and the latter a very melodic song with lots of beautiful guitar harmonies. Buddy´s vocal performance on A Psychotic Waltz is noteworthy for being passionate and different from the studio version from A Social Grace.

Before Sucessor begins Buddy Lackey thanks a german band for lending them their rehearsal room and dedicates the song to them. Sucessor has always been one of the strangest but most powerful tracks on A Social Grace and here it´s done excellently.

The next song is Strange and just before the song starts an audience member shouts something that sounds like cocroach and to that Buddy Lackey replies: Shut Up and Dance. Just hilarious especially when you take into account that Strange is anything but dancable. This is a great powerful version of Strange. Note the extremely fast dual guitar leads which are played to perfection. Strange is one of the highlights of this live set.

Psychotic Waltz chose to play a song from their at the time forthcoming album Info the Everflow. Out of mind is the second song from that album and unfortunately this song drowns a bit in the bootleg sound. The song is energetic and loud and that´s probably the reason, but it´s one of the weakest performances here.

The flute led ballad I remember was always one of the highlights at Psychotic Waltz concerts and it´s no exception here. This is the ultimate crowd pleaser and the audience is participating by singing along. The flute solo comes of a bit weak as there are audio fallouts.

In this Place comes next and it´s one of my least favorite tracks here. It´s good but not excellent in this version. After the song Buddy talk about his hippie ideals. Love being a more powerful force than hate and so on.

Psychotic Waltz then plays the second song of their forthcoming album Into The Everflow called Little People. This is a powerful performance and one of the highlights of the set. Before the song starts Buddy says: This is our last song for tonight but he is then corrected by one of the other bandmembers and excuses to the audience that his setlist is incorrect.

Spiral Tower follows. Another great perfomance.

The set ends with I Am the Walrus by The Beatles. A charming metal cover version of that psychadelic gem.

CD2:

Flashback into the abyss starts CD2 and it´s a useless track IMO. Synth sounds with noisy guitar on top. This moves into post rock territory and is not worth my time.

Burn the Night is the next song and it´s a melodic thrashy metal song which reminds me of other mid to late eighties melodic metal/ thrash bands like Fates Warning, Savatage, Lääz Rocket, Forbidden and Heathen. It´s a pretty powerful song but nothing special really.

To chase the stars is one of the better songs on CD2. It´s a power ballad where we get to hear the whole repetoire from Buddy Lackey. There are also a few hints in the acoustic guitars that remeinds me of the sound on Into The Everflow. Compared to the songs on the studio albums this is mediocre at best though.

Snippet is an utterly useless 15 seconds guitar idea. Why would anyone be interested in this ? This is not even interesting for the fans.

No glory is next and it is in a similar style to Burn the Night which means melodic metal/ thrash that reminds me of Queensrÿche, Fates Warning, Savatage and Heathen. The song is allright but again nothing special.

Then we have Spiral tower in an early pre-album version. This version is actually pretty powerful and worth a listen.

The fry tape is of some interest. It´s an instrumental track with some nice acoustic guitars and lots Dan Rock´s spacey synths ( remescient of the intro to Ashes and Sleeping Dogs). There is also a classical influenced section in the middle. It seems a bit unfinished but I´m at least intrigued by this one.

Sucessor is the next song and it´s a version that is very close to the original studio version on A Social Grace just with a more demo like sound. The same counts for the next song Halo of Thorns. Pretty useless if you ask me.

The Keeper is a live song and to start with I was sure that this was an early version of Ashes because the start riff from that song also starts The Keeper but when the song starts for real it´s an entirely other song. But suddenly in the middle of the song Ashes comes in and we hear the entire song. Ashes was the middle part of The Keeper before being seperated into a seperat song. It was a good decision to seperate the two parts as the more heavy part of The Keeper isn´t very exciting. The Ashes part of the song is of course great.

Dan's fall is a short jamming live piece where Buddy Lackey tells the audience how guitarist Dan Rock was badly injured due to a fall and how this as a consequence means that he can only grow half a beard ( Dan Rock had a very distinct beard style at the time. Look at the band photo on the inner sleeve to Into The Everflow). This is funny stuff and I´m almost reminded of Frank Zappa here.

007 is as the title suggests the title theme from James Bond played live by the band. What a useless waste of time.

Flute Solo is a Buddy Lackey a capella flute solo. it´s allright and heavily inspired by Ian Anderson but again nothing special.

Diary of a madman is another live song and it´s a cover of Ozzy Osbourne. It´s actually a pretty great cover song and one of the better songs on CD2.

Pre-Freakshow is some loose ideas that would be used later on the song Freakshow. Useless stuff.

Clusterfuck jam has lots of parts from the title track from Mosquito but I also seem to hear other riffs that I have heard before but I´m not sure. This is an interesting song in the respect that it is interesting to hear in which context known riffs where initially used. A real fan thing though.

Unfinished sounds as the title suggests unfinished. The structure of the song is there but there are no vocals and the song lacks details that would make it more exciting. With it´s 8:35 minutes it could have been an interesting listen had it been finished and released in a real studio version.

The Ending is another useless piece that not even a fan would be interested in but with it´s 0:17 minutes it´s mercifully short.

Conclusion:

Live & Archives is a classic example of a real fan item. There is nothing of interest here for the casual listener. Bootleg quality live shows just don´t give anyone else but fans satisfaction and archive material is also only for the real fans. This means that even though I find especially the live show interesting this is a 2 star album. Even the fans should be aware that this might not be worth you money. Only for the hardcore fans.