It's about time the audiophile industry took notice of Heavy Metal, what DTS has brought forth is a more punchier, kick in the ass version of one of the most brutally aggressive thrash metal albums of all times.
Who can't deny this record's complete energy that was captured during the 1986 sessions and would incorporate pure musicianship that would set the standard for almost all of the Metal albums to come out for the next several years and beyond. This record is aligned with Metallica's Ride the Lightning, as far as standard for melodic thrash is concerned, hell, Mustaine was the original lead guitarist for that band respectively.
Incorporating Mustaine's Lead Guitar styling, along with his throaty vocal styling, brought forth with Lead Guitarist Chris Poland's jazz/progressive meets thrash styling to create dual lead harmonizing, copulated with the late Gar Sanuelson's jazz drumming that would bring the technical percussive aspect to the band. Not to mention Dave Ellefson's bass playing, who obviously created one the most memorable bass lines of metal found within the title track; showcasing pure diverse chops that extend beyond simplistic power chords and 12 bar songwriting, being one of the first thrash records to incorporate progressive time signatures and strange key changes within the masterpiece presented here.
Every song on this record is a fucking opus, eight tracks that are all stellar, no bullshit fillers, just pure aggression though and through, through the darkish opening of
"Wake up Dead" to the final riffs of
"My Last Words," it's all documented here, in a format that goes beyond the resolution of the standard 44.1kHz/16 bit format.
For those of you who are not familiar to this technology, the DVD Audio and it's sister format SACD (Super Audio CD) creates a more intriguing listening format, adding extra headroom to really crank up the bass and treble to the fragile digital format, giving you the closest possible reproduction of what the band sounded like in the Studio at the time the record was being recorded, or per say, the as close to the 2-track/multitrack master tapes as possible, without losing the warmth that is sometimes lost in the limited sampling rate of the standard CD format, not to mention that this record has not only been remastered, but yet remixed in both stereo and 5.1 surround, using more modernized equipment, given delicate care so that the metalhead can gear every nuance that was meant to be heard; even the in the interview, the guys said that there is so much more that you an hear with this release than the original.
If you don't have a surround sound system, you still get the full blown experience. The guitars are much more present than the original and the improvement is immediately noticeable. For the surround experience, each band member seems to have his own place within a corner of a room, but being spacious (although the vocals come out of the center channel), being less of a gimmick oriented release without all of the constant hard panning (that might belong on an Alan Parson's Project album), putting you in the room where the band was playing, even in stereo you get this feel, just make sure you have a good set of speakers, they don't mix this high resolution format sympathetically to be played out of boom boxes.
Bonus features include two videos, the title cut and
"Wake up Dead," an interview with Mustaine, Poland, and Ellefson, who speak about the original recording process and the new reissue, and a neat function to where you can listen to different mixes of
"Devil's Island," where you can hear the certain guitars along, drums alone, drums and bass, etc.
A very deserving treatment for such a phenomenal record, all the guitar solos come out at you like a runaway freight train; "If there is a new way" to hear this, you will be "The First in Line."
This plays on all DVD players, but to get the high resolution sound, you will need a DVD Audio player, think of this as a glamorized interactive CD+ without all the software headaches.
Written by
Hashman Sunday, January 4, 2004
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