Raised from the ashes of the legendary Swedish death metal band Carnage, Dismember already exists since 1988. With almost 100 shows played all over the world last year, a 20 year anniversary celebration and the release of their eighth full length album simply called Dismember, it is time for their second DVD release. Under Blood Red Skies (named after a track on the last full length) is a double DVD including their full 70 minutes set at Germany’s Party San festival and a bonus DVD including various interviews, live clips and other material. Nothing but goodness so to see!

 

For those unknown with this band, their sound can best be described as a mixture between Entombed, Vomitory and Grave. And Dismember proves their dirty old school death metal sound once again on the seventy minutes set at the Party San festival in Germany last year. From the mid-tempo opening track ‘Stillborn Ways’ to tracks from their self titled 2008 album like ‘Dark Depth’ and ‘Death Conquers All’ and, surprisingly, almost the whole classic album Like An Ever Flowing Stream (1991) including tracks like ‘Dismembered’, ‘Skin Her Alive’ and ‘Bleed For Me’. The camerawork is nice, so is the sound, but doesn’t really stand out. The audio part, the music itself, is where it gets interesting as the band still shows to put on a quality piece of music after all those years. It actually makes the sound a bit worthless because viewing a whole death metal show like this is a little boring after some tracks. The first DVD is worth checking out to just put the music on the background though, and if you were there it’s probably a nice souvenir.

 

The second DVD is where it gets a bit more interesting. The first part contains a documentary including how the band works in the studio, some fan footage, influences, a bit about the lineup changes in the band, some footage from shows (including in Holland!) and the bands view on the Masters of Death tour (including Entombed, Unleashed and Grave which was according to them one of the best tours ever). The “bonus material” which is about the same as the documentary (except for the interview) includes some headbanging all over the world with other band members (Morbid Angel, Urgehal, Grave…) and big shows like Brutal Assault ’07 next to very small ones in a place like Jakarta. You will notice immediately that this is an absolute party band and they still have the same fun and drive they had when they started in 1988.

 

Overall it’s a quality 2 and half hours of footage so you can look more into the bands world and drunk experiences. The first DVD should have been an audio-cd in my opinion but as most people play their music on the computer nowadays anyway, you can just play the sound on your computer as it’s an absolute quality show. This proves it’s absolutely not the last time we’ll hear of Dismember!