Metallica - Cunning Stunts

Good music DVDs and those of concerts are few and far between so when Metallica produced a 2 disc set with the first mainstream use of the multi-angle feature on DVD, people were sure to take notice and make this DVD the success that it is, fans or not fans.

The second Metallica disc to review this week is also the better one. Filmed on location at the Fort Worth, Texas leg of their Cunning Stunts world tour, the concert is performed "in the round" style with a massive user-friendly stage that gets the audience involved from all corners of the arena.

This 2 disc set presents the concert in its entirity with the main set of songs split onto the first disc and the Encores and extras on the second.

Recorded directly onto digital video, this presentation looks stellar to say the least. The image is very clean and free from the different extreme color range you get from an analogue video recording. The colors are still rich yet not overpowering with a much warmer feel to the whole concert which brings out subtle details in both stage and performers alike.

Black levels could have been a little better yet are still very good with some really good shadow detail as the stage lighting goes down low. There is some minor mpeg artifacting which most definately would not have been there if it was Warner Vision producing this disc with their trusty "Crank up the quality to full" compression motto.

There are 2 soundtracks presented here, 5.1 and 2.0 dolby digital. Both are excellent presentations in their own right but the 5.1 mix stands out as being more enveloping and expansive than the 2.0 channel mix could ever hope to achieve.

The raw energy of the live recordings produces a soundtrack with a dynamic range that resides in the lower half of the frequency spectrum. What does this mean for those of you with subwoofers? Bolt down anything that is not bolted down as it's going to rattle across whatever ledge, shelf, table or wall it currently resides on and end up on the floor, still rattling. Yes, there is some deep, deep bass here folks.

The concert itself is also captured perfectly here with some entertaining surround presence and audience participation. The highlight still has to be the air-obic workout your subwoofer gets.

• Touted as one of the first mainstream titles to include the multi-angle feature of DVD, Cunning Stunts provides some 4 songs with the feature enabled so you can switch between different views of your favorite band members without any pause in video or audio. If you haven't experienced this feature on any 'adult' DVDs that you 'borrowed off a friend just to see how the feature works' then here's your chance to see it in action.
• A series of behind the scenes featurettes are scattered across 2 discs that show you the antics of bost cast and crew backstage.
• A photo gallery consisting of hundreds of photos from the Cunning Stunts tour.
• The usual dvd-rom content of weblinks and discographies are included for those with the ability.
• Finally some animated menus help you navigate through the options available.

This is Metallica as live and raw and offensive as you can get, all captured on 2 discs that bring this concert tour into your homes.

A much better buy than the S&M disc that it precedes.