Live in the LBC - Diamonds in the Rough - Avenged Sevenfold DVD/CD set Review

Avenged Sevenfold

DVD/CD set Review

Avenged Sevenfold's DVD/CD set features a live performance in Long Beach California, as well as a CD full of B side recordings, remixes and two cover versions. The DVD shows the band on top form. Ploughing through a twelve track set, they cater to old and new fans with a varied and mixed set list which includes a cover of Pantera's Walk, with a studio recording also on the CD too.

The live performance itself is worth the price of the bundle. Opening with Critical Acclaim from their self titled fourth release, Avenged Sevenfold add touches of class to their performance including dancers, pyro and bringing up an audience member to lead sing for an entire song. A glance at the DVD makes you realise the magnitude of their back catalogue, with such songs as Second Heartbeat and Little Piece Of Heaven being unrecognised by anyone other than the bands fan base. Afterlife and Seize The Day evidently prove huge crowd pleasers, as well as Gunslinger which was accompanied with a heartfelt tribute to the troops in Iraq. The actually performance itself is lacking nothing, although the DVD features are reserved to intro videos which the band used on their tour which grow tedious very quickly. If I was just reviewing the DVD I'd give it five stars, the banters good and the band sound flawless throughout, but unfortunately there's a CD in the mix too...

The CD by the band, to put it bluntly, is crap. Even the band's guitarist Synyster Gates confirmed this in Kerrang, describing the CD as "full of songs nowhere near good enough for the album". It features eleven songs on the album, two remixes of Afterlife & Almost Easy which sound exactly the same as the original, which no altered words additional solos or anything. There are two cover versions of Pantera and Iron Maiden which aren't bad, although any avid fan would've already collected these in free issues of Kerrang! Magazine. That just leaves the seven b sides left, none of which sound like the innovative metal that the band have brought from their last two albums. The songs aren't horrific, but from a band of this prestige you'd expect better. They would've been better off producing their live DVD into a CD too, because the CD does nothing but tarnish all their hard work from their live performance.

The package from the band isn't bad for a tenner. The DVD alone is worth the retail price, it's one of the few live performances which entertains instead of disappoints as most music DVDs do. The CD is a complete waste of space and is nothing more than an attempt to make it look good value for money.

Tom Crowther