ALIVE AND WELL... WHO AM I?/LIVE IN KRAKOW

I got the Green Carnation "Alive and well. In Krakow" DVD after "A Night Under The Dam" DVD. Since Green Carnation really impressed me with their acoustic concert "A Night Under The Dam", my expectations for "Alive and Well." were pretty high. Therefore it was probably impossible to meet those expectations.

Not that there's really anything wrong with this DVD. Green Carnation is a great band and there's also nothing wrong with the track list of this DVD, even though I would have liked the one of my favourite CG's songs "Lullaby In Winter" to be on it.

So far, so good you would say. In a way yes, but the DVD quality is kind of poor though. While the music on "A Night Under The Dam" sounded really fresh, clear and sparkling, the music quality on this DVD sounds like there's drapery hanging over my speakers. The production of this DVD definitely could/should have been better. I notice that many bands record their concerts in Poland lately. The lower production costs could be one reason for that, but this may not be a reason for poor quality. Bands like ARENA and PENDRAGON and PORCUPINE TREE have proven to make excellent recordings in Poland, so why didn't GC?

The concert itself consists of 8 tracks with a total running time of approximately one hour. Not too long considering that they also play a piece of their epic "Light Of Day, Day Of Darkness". Needless to say they only play a small part of it. The extra consist out of 3 bootleg videos. Since they already call them bootlegs themselves I don't have to get into the quality aspect again do I? Poor, Poor, Poor.

More interesting extra's are 7 audio tracks. 4 acoustic tracks, the A-HA cover "Stay On These Roads" and the Chris Isaac cover "Wicked Game", and 1 demo track from their forthcoming album. What becomes terribly clear now is that the quality of the bonus audio actually sounds clear and sparkling again. It is also very nice to hear some of the "hard 'n heavy" tracks in an acoustic setting. Simply wonderful!

Conclusion: Great band, poor DVD (quality). The 7 bonus audio tracks are all really worth it though!

This DVD actually dates from 2004, the year the gig took place. For 2009, Metal Mind productions have re-released the set as a limited edition (1000 copies) Digipak box with a bonus CD containing the audio track of the concert. The title has been slightly amended to the simpler "Alive and well. . . In Krakow". As such, we need to manage expectations in terms of the production quality. Metal Mind's recent DVD releases of the many great concerts which have taken place in Poland of late have set extraordinarily high standard in both video and audio terms. This release though takes us back a few years as far as technical excellence is concerned, the sound in particular being at best described as adequate.

To be fair, that sound is probably much as you would hear it if you were at the gig, with the bass riffs being over loud and distorted while the vocals are muffled. The guitar work tends to come across well though, especially during the solos, and the keyboard swathes are lush and atmospheric.

Most of the songs here are taken from Norwegian band Green Carnation's then current third album, "A blessing in disguise", the main exception being a 22 minute extract from the album filling song "Light of day, day of darkness". The mood of the music is often gothic, with heavy riffs and deep, powerful vocals. There are suggestions of the music of bands such as The Mission and Sisters of Mercy blended with more contemporary outfits like Anathema. The energy of songs like "Myron and Cole" and "Crushed to dust" is occasionally balanced by softer numbers like "The boy in the attic". By and large though, this is a set which demands the full attention and commitment of both listener and band.

On the plus side, the audience do seem far more aware of what is going on than their friends in Katowice, and are much more responsive than them. This helps to contribute to the overall atmosphere of the gig.

The DVD includes a number of appealing extras which help to offset the rather brief 1 hour running time of the main gig. The first of these is a short film of drummer Anders Kobro in the studio, adding the drum track to "Into deep". This is followed by three bootleg recordings of performances of songs which are included in the set list of the main gig. The sound quality of these songs is understandably worse than that of the main gig, the filming taking place from the audience on a hand-held camcorder. We are also treated to seven audio only songs. These include acoustic versions of four tracks from the "Blessing in disguise" album, plus covers of songs by Aha and Chris Isaac. These studio recordings sound much better in technical terms, while offering an interesting alternative view of the songs. The final audio track is a "pre-production demo" of what I take to be "Child's play" from the 2005 album "The quiet offspring".

Also include on the DVD is a lengthy interview with the band plus various text based "extras".

In all, a well packaged DVD which contains a lot of fine music. While the sound quality is not of the standard we might now expect, the set remains well performed and highly enjoyable.

In full disclosure this is a "flash" review written with only one viewing of a rental DVD. Nevertheless I felt I needed to write if nothing else to offer a slightly counter opinion to my esteemed colleagues: This DVD doesn't have poor sound in my opinion, it has a fine "live" sound. If this is what passes for weak audio quality these days, then today's kids really have it easy. True it doesn't match the production quality of a PT or Pain of Salvation DVD might feature, but it is perfectly enjoyable and capable of being turned to high volume without problems. This is an authentic local live sound that you would get walking into a large rock club in your city, not the super-slick perfection of the mega-budget projects- but there's nothing wrong with that. With that out of the way, the set itself is a compact killer of "personal" songs according to the band in the interview section. They start out with some raucous numbers that feel just a bit tentative, but by the time they hit the epic "Light of Day" excerpt they are really rolling and in fine form. My favorite thing about Green Carnation's metal style is the relaxed and spacious feel of the guitar. They go for these monstrous, lumbering chords and just let them ring on, enjoying the feel of the volume. The dual guitar assault on stage works very well to balance the constant crunch with more delicate introspective playing. Synths add great atmosphere via both background presence and occasional solo breaks of lovely melody. The vocals are strong and aggressive enough to compete with the highly mixed guitars and drums. The light show was minimal but the camera and editing work were more than competent, keeping you in great view of the pertinent action without driving you crazy with strobe editing. A collection of audio and video extras plus band interview make the package appealing for fans of the band and noobs alike. Again, I didn't get enough spins to offer much detail on the composition itself but found the disc to be thoroughly enjoyable.