Therion – Live Gothic

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Nuclear Blast
Produced by Richard Peach & Petter Karlsson

Live Gothic‘s three discs (one DVD, two CDs) documents Therion’s Gothic Kabbalah tour at the beginning of 2007. A gig on their monumental Adulruna Tour at the end of 2007 was also filmed, but is not set to be released for some time. This particular show was filmed in Warsaw, Poland on February 14.

Founder Christofer Johnsson had by now formed a supremely tight partnership with brothers Kristian (guitar) and Johan (bass) Niemann, with drummer Petter Karlsson, and they sound absolutely flawless on this live recording; exactly as they do on the studio CDs. For the vocals only American soprano Lori Lewis remained from the 2004 tour, joined by Katarina Lilja, Snowy Shaw and Mats Levén, who all sang on Gothic Kabbalah.

Between the four vocalists they handled the full range of Therion material on this tour, but this recording shows up the failings and/or nervousness in Snowy Shaw’s first ever tour as a lead singer (in previous bands Dream Evil, Memento Mori and Mercyful Fate he played drums, and played guitar and bass in Notre Dame), particularly at the start of the show, although on The Perennial Sophia he sounds superb throughout. The problem comes because he tackles so many different singing styles throughout the show, covering all the areas Levén’s higher metal voice and the two soprano’s don’t sing. This ranges from tenor parts to growls to screams. His performance and confidence notably improved on the Adulruna Tour.

Much like the main concert feature of 2005′s Celebrators of Becoming box set Live Gothic‘s sound perfectly captures a typical gig on this tour, with the addition of a couple of extra songs not played every night (Thor (The Powerhead) in particular), while the camera-work improves upon it, with increased use of roaming cameras on arms and camera-handling and editing speed which matches the pace of the music each time it changes. Some of the ‘aerial’ shots where the camera changes horizontal angle as it glides towards the stage over the heads of the audience (see Son of The Staves of Time) are magnificent.

The Gothic Kabbalah world tour was the only tour with this line-up of singers as Lilja didn’t go on the Adulruna Tour and Levén left to be replaced by Thomas Vikström. Any fans who attended this excellent tour will want this set. It is the perfect live document of one of the band’s most successful tour. The only criticism is that it is a rather bare-bones DVD and there is very little in the way of bonus concert footage from some of the festival appearances on the tour. That is but a small issue as there is plenty of that kind of footage on one of the bonus discs in Celebrators of Becoming. If fans’ mouths weren’t already watering at the prospect of an Adulruna Tour DVD the quality of this release will certainly get the pulses racing.

“ absolutely flawless ”

Tracklist:
DVD – Das Mitternacht Löwe / Schwartzalbenheim / The Blood of Kingu / The Falling Stone / An Arrow From The Sun / Deggial / Wine of Aluqah / The Perennial Sophia / The Son of The Sun / Son of The Staves of Time / Birth of Venus Illegitima / Tuna 1613 / Drum solo / Muspelheim / Rise of Sodom And Gomorrah / Ginnungagap / Grand Finale / Lemuria / The Wand of Abaris / Nightside of Eden / To Mega Therion / Thor (The Powerhead)
CD1 – Das Mitternacht Löwe / Schwartzalbenheim / The Blood of Kingu / The Falling Stone / An Arrow From The Sun / Deggial / Wine of Aluqah / The Perennial Sophia / The Son of The Sun / Son of The Staves of Time / Birth of Venus Illegitima / Tuna 1613 / Drum solo / Muspelheim
CD2 – Rise of Sodom And Gomorrah / Ginnungagap / Grand Finale / Lemuria / The Wand of Abaris / Nightside of Eden / To Mega Therion / Thor (The Powerhead)

Written by Andy Lye
More: 2008, Live DVDs, Symphonic, Therion