superkid |
07-02-2014 11:33 PM |
I bought it yesterday at Best Buy, and so far I'm really enjoying this release. I've never seen the Access All Areas documentary before, so I was especially looking forward to this part and watched it first. The music throughout was incredible, and compared to WWWB the band came across as very likeable and energetic. Highlights for me were the opening scene with the band criticizing their performance while the fans praised it, the performance with Jimmy Page at Hammersmith, and them visiting the Berlin Wall/Moscow and it's historical significance. As for the music videos, I enjoyed the video clips that they put in between the videos, which made them flow together really well. Even though we've seen the videos before, this made it feel fresh to me and I'm glad it wasn't just lazily pieced together with nothing added as I expected.
As for the tracks, it was also my first time hearing most of them as I've been avoiding all of the clips and leaks the past few weeks. I really liked the versions of Diamond Ring and Homebound Train. Stick to Your Guns and WITW are decent too, but I'm not sure they were worthy of being released since they just came across as unfinished versions not too far from what they ended up going with for the album to me. I would've rather had those two replaced with "Cadillac Man" and "Rosie", but I guess we can't have everything. As for the others, there's not really a weak song on here. On first listen "Growing Up the Hard Way" is one of my favorites, along with "House of Fire" and "Love Hurts". I'm sure more of the tracks will grow on me as time goes on. Finally, the booklet is pretty cool as well, and the description at the beginning is pretty interesting as is the excerpts on all of the songs. I never knew that one of the ways they decided what would make the album was by bringing fifty random teenagers to the studio to listen and provide feedback, and I'd be cool to hear what they'd have to say if any of them are still around.
Overall this was a great release, and one of the best things released for the "die-hards" in years. I'm looking forward to hearing what the next project is going to be.
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