Top 40 boy-band The Calling have their chance in the Music in High Places spotlight as they venture into Italy. After recently reviewing Wynonna in Italy, some may have thought that places would have been repeated, but thankfully this is not the case, with these guys looking at Siena and Florence.
How to describe The Calling? Well, the best way to do this is by comparison. Based on these a capella performances, they sound like a Collective Soul for the next decade. Singer Band’s powerful and raspy qualities fight through the music and lead the tune through bar by bar, in a similar way to Ed Roland from Collective Soul. The music is harmoniously rich and finely detailed, with superb lyrical qualities and most importantly the melody and rhythm to drive through.
Known for their top 40 smash single Wherever You Will Go, this is not the best track they have done, as can be seen on this Italian showcase. Saying this, the a capella version is the only way to listen to this song, and the other six pieces all sound great as a combination of two guitars (Aaron Kamin and sometimes Sean Woolstenhulme), one bass (Billy Mohler), a drum (Nate Wood) and vocals (Alex Band) pour out their finely detailed music.
The track listing is very short in comparison to other discs in the series, which is more obvious when the last fifteen minutes are behind the scenes footage.
- Unstoppable
- Could it Be Any Harder?
- Final Answer
- Adrienne
- We’re Forgiven
- Stigmatized
- Wherever You Will Go
The only downside to this disc is the inclusion of the ad break cut scenes, as can also be seen in telemovies. This disrupts the flow of the episode and is, quite frankly, annoying beyond belief. But that’s the bad side over, so now on to the good...
The video is presented in a widescreen aspect of 1.78:1. The video quality is remarkable, especially in comparison to other Music In High Places discs, which is partly due to the 16x9 enhancement.
Colours are bright and vibrant, yet appear to have a slight wash over them, but this is due to the filming equipment rather than a fault of the transfer. Skin tones are rich and peachy, and best of all, natural! Colours are a little over-saturated at times, but not by much. Blacks are solid and deep, and shadow detail is remarkable for the genre and the source video.
Aliasing isn’t a problem apart from the odd one or two slight occurrences on things like architectural mouldings and brick work. The rest of the transfer looks great. Film artefacts are not a problem, except during the time-lapse piece of photography early on in the episode. These two are only a speck here and there, so are not distracting at all. There are no compression artefacts, nor any grain due to the video’s digital source.
The picture is consistently sharp and detailed, with a precise image so sharp that you could cut open a steel-door safe. Subtitles are included for Spanish, French and German, and are a black-outlined yellow font which are easy to read, but not understandable for those of us who can’t speak one of the three languages.
Two audio tracks accompany the episode, both Dolby Digital English tracks, but with one in 5.1 and the other 2.0.
Normally this is the part where we bitch about the 2.0 track being better than the 5.1 for the Music In High Places discs, but not this time. The 5.1 track stands out so far ahead of the 2.0 one its not funny. Dialogue is clear, crisp and audible throughout. Most importantly, the surrounds aren’t too loud and dominant, and are mainly used to accompany the musical pieces with environmental effects such as an echo during Stigmatized. Notably, the 2.0 track is a fair bit quieter than the 5.1 track, but maybe that is to make it sound even more piddly than it already is.
Bass levels are reasonable, but keep in mind that there is no pounding bass line that needs to be supported. Directional effects from the 5.1 track are great, and the soundstage that is created is large, deep, busy and enveloping, making it a full-on aural experience. The 2.0 track (especially in comparison) sounds flat and lifeless. Sure, if you’re after a pure rendition of the songs without environmental effects, chose this track, but for a full-on 5.1 experience, the 5.1 track is the only way to fly.
As with other Music in High Places discs, extra features are abundant. Continuing with firsts for this series is 16x9 enhanced menus, which are a tad hard to read on a conventional 4:3 television.
Firstly, the usual Behind the Scenes is built into the actual show due to the length (or lack thereof) of The Calling’s adventure through Italy. This is quite humorous as it shows a more relaxed mood for the guys, as well as some short behind-the-scenes footage.
The four Bonus Featurettes run for various times, and are fairly interesting to watch but only for entertainment value rather than for technical usefulness. The featurettes are: Nate and the Face (6:20), Art Gone Wild (1:36), Whirly Cam (0:24) and Lost Luggage... The Real Story (15:19). All of these are presented in a widescreen aspect, but are not 16x9 enhanced.
Just the Music is exactly that – the same tracks that are in the episode, but without the other effects that are in the cut scenes. The video footage is similar, but not the same, and the audio is only available in a Dolby Digital 5.1 mix. Watching these really shows how good the video transfer of the actual episode is, as these clips at 4:3 and boast excessive aliasing. Thank You has been included as an extra that wasn’t included in the final edit, but gives fans something else to look at.
The Biography is a text-based one of the guys in English only.
OK, this disc doesn’t have as many features as other Music in High Places discs, but they are still quite informative for what there is.
This disc is definitely for the fans, and also for lovers of fine ballads and acoustic performances. This is by far the best transfer thus far in the Music in High Places series, and hopefully leads the way for a new standard in quality for future releases.
