RAPTURE

Seventh heaven

It must have been quite a day on 10th of November in the Silesian Theatre in Katowice, Poland. Three of the finest prog bands around today, Arena, Believe and Osada Vida, performed live with all three gigs being recorded for release on DVD.

"Rapture" captures Arena's performance, the gig forming part of their tour to promote their latest album "The Seventh degree of separation". Rather than simply playing the new album in full, the band decided to intersperse the new songs with a wide selection of numbers from their entire history. Simultaneously, the tour served to introduce new lead singer Paul Manzi and to reintroduce bassist John Jowitt who has rejoined the line up.

With the gig running to around 2 hours, over 20 songs are included in the performance, including (appropriately) seven from the new album. Mazni's voice suits both the new and the old material perfectly, with selections from albums such as "The visitor" and "Contagion" sounding fresh but reassuringly familiar. Every album from the band's history is covered, going right back to "Songs from the lions' cage" which contributes "Valley of the kings" and the magnificent "Solomon", still a highlight of the set. The set list is loosely laid out as the tracks appear on the albums, with the songs which introduce the original albums coming up front and the closing tracks forming the latter part of the concert. This gives the DVD a feeling of continuity, although it can be a little disconcerting when a familiar song does not lead to the expected successor.

The five man line up are in great form, and clearly enjoying the experience of playing together to an appreciative audience. Despite his relentless commitment to numerous projects Clive Nolan is full of energy, his keyboards at times balancing precariously as he leads the band towards another crescendo. John Mitchell's lead guitar has never sounded finer, his solo at the end of the title track of "The visitor" still drawing a tear, such is the emotion of the piece. He also adds an unexpected solo to "Ascension" that only serves to make the song even more powerful.

Mick Pointer ensures that the band is as tight as ever, his dry wit coming to the fore as he teases the interviewer on the accompanying interview with Clive and Mick. John Jowitt looks as if he never left the band, assuming his former position with a relaxed authority. He obviously derives particular pleasure performing the songs he originally played on from "Pride" and "The visitor".

On a technical front, we have all witnessed DVD's where the crew were not aware of the band's music, resulting in poor direction and inappropriate effects. It is easy though to overlook when things are done right. Here the director, the crew and the editor have clearly done their homework, with the DVD showing each member of the band at the appropriate time while capturing the atmosphere created by the knowledgeable audience. The experience the behind the scenes team have gathered through filming many great concerts in Katowice in recent years means DVDs such as this become presentations others can only aspire to.

The DVD is presented in 2.0 and 5.1 sound and comes in a fine Digipack cover with artwork similar to that of the recent album. Also included is a 20 minute "bootleg" film of the band live in Warsaw, Poland from the same tour, photos, discography and desktop images.

In summary, a magnificent performance by a great band capture perfectly. With the limited opportunities available to see the band worldwide, I would commend this as a very worthy alternative.

Another DVD with Metal Mind, so you know what to expect, nice camera work, always the same venue, the bands don't have much to pay for this if they pay something, and everybody is happy! It gives exposure to the band and to Metal Mind Productions. This is the tour to promote the new cd of the band with the beautiful title "The Seventh Degree of Separation". This one contains shorter songs with a lot of punch and is the occasion to present the new singer Paul Manzi. This singer as a strong voice and strong arms, he must work out every day...

The new album is well represented here with 7 songs, the rest is a couple of tracks from their others cds. The music of Arena as always remind me of a heavier version of Pendragon with a strong Marillion influence, first period era. It's symphonic prog with a hard edge, and plenty of beautiful atmosphere with the master on keyboards, Clive Nolan.

The light show is dominate with plenty of blue and the stage is often immerse into a complete dark, which is probably a illustration of the dark concept of the new cd. By the way Clive and Paul have both ti-shirts with skull head.

The picture and the sound are clear, and the 5.1 surround mix, like all the Metal Mind Productions releases is mostly present to create atmosphere and not really to hear instruments in different speakers.

Arena´s latest video was recorded, as expected, at the same venue in Poland, like the previous two. Nothing against that: actually the place is beautiful and the acoustics must be special, for the sound of the recordings only gets better and better with the latest technology involved. This is one of the best features of this DVD/blue ray: the words impeccable and perfect are the ones that come to mind the most when I listen to the show. I don´t know if there was any studio overdubs, but it clearly sounds very natural. The Video quality is also top notch, the best so far I saw from this band, laced with some very fine light work, with the right lots of blue and shadows.

Having said that, I´m not entirely convinced by either the new material from their latest product, The Seventh Degree Of Separation, nor by the perfomance of the new singer Paul Manzi. Ok, the guy is probably the best singer the band ever had, technically speaking. His vocal prowness is amazing, but not really his delivering. He is just too "nice", too "soft", if you know what I mean, lacking that gloomy, almost spooky interpretations Rob Sowden and Paul Wrightson had that fitted so well to the dark themes Arena embraces. Both previous singers had a far more dramatic approach the tunes ask for and Sowden in particular could sound specially menacing on stage, giving the lyrics a liver impact. Manzi, as much as he tries, rarely comes close to that.

And while the new material works better live than on CD, it is still not on par with their earlier stuff. Not too much, but still inferior. Fortunatly only seven tracks of that CD are performed and they are all short ones. The performances of the band members are, again technically., nearly perfect. Clive Nolan and John Mitchell have gained a few pounds since the last time I saw them on stage and sometimes I have the feeling they are not playing with the same energy they used to. However, it´s good to see John Jowitt back (of IQ and Jadis fame) in the fold after a long spell.

Overall a quite enjoyable show, filled with great songs and nice perfomances. As I said before, it´s their best visual and sounding DVD ever, although the interpretation of the songs is not as powerful as they used to be.

Rating: somewhere between 3 and 3,5 stars.