Mushroomhead - Volume 2This film is mostly a bunch of footage of the band acting all crazy while on the road during their Savior Sorrow tour. Not crazy like the gory monster violence they portray in their videos but crazy as in juvenile pranksterism. You'll see fire crackers going off to startle crew members awake, inflatable shark attacks and the inappropriate use of bananas. The band appears without their make-up or masks and there is very little talk of music or performance; mostly they drink, insult each other and otherwise goof around. Hardcore fans will love the nonsense but the film actually does a very good job of showing how the members of Mushroomhead maintain sanity on the road with what is mostly harmless fun. There are a couple of truly rough moments though; fistfights between band members and an accident involving one of their tour buses shows that not everything is fun and games. Interspersed with the candid footage are numerous videos including "1200," "Simple Survival" and the recent "Save Us." There are snippets of live performance too and a bonus video segment includes live takes of "Burn," "1200" and "Simple Survival." If you have it in your mind that these guys live the wild satanic life that they portray professionally you'll be very surprised by what you see in this film.
Black Metal Satanica
This is a documentary that explains how black metal came into being in Scandinavia (credit or blame the Vikings) and how it has progressed as told by a narrator and members of current black metal bands like Watain, Mordichrist and Rimsfrost. The stories from black metal's nascent days, when bands like Bathory and Mayhem ruled the scene, are beyond creepy; they are outright frightening. Through news footage the film chronicles murder and suicide, cannibalism, church burning, self mutilation and grave and corpse desecration. The number of musicians who died or went to prison during this era is startling. The new batch of groups mostly shakes their heads in disbelief at this stuff; they choose instead to pour their intensity into the music. There is no performance footage but during the film you'll hear music from Vreid, Watain, Shining, Svartahrid, Rimsfrost, Mordichrist and Ondskapt.
Various Artists - Earache My Eye
This compilation of videos from Earache artists was originally released in 1989 and this is the first time the vintage material has shown up on DVD. You can draw some interesting observations here if you want, like with Dub War's performance of "Shake It." You don't have to listen too closely to hear that the band sounds a lot (a lot!) like Rage Against the Machine but it's actually the other way around since the Dub War cut pre-dated Rage's earliest material by a couple years. Napalm Death check in with the pummeling "Greed Killing," Brutal Truth do some monster-growl on "Godplayer" and Cathedral and Sleep both give nods to Paranoid-era Black Sabbath. Also on the compilation are Godflesh, Fudge Tunnel, Meathook Seed, Entombed and several others.
