I have to admit back in 2001 when Emperor called it quits I was fairly sure the band would one day rise again for a new album or at least a tour, and indeed 2006 marked the bands revival. Documented on this DVD box set are two live CDs from the bands headlining spots on the Inferno Festival and the Wacken Open Air concerts in 2006, and a DVD live performance of the aforesaid Wacken Open Air show. The box comes as a large digibook of sorts, which houses the three discs as well various pages of live photos from these shows and lyrical quotes from Emperor songs.
The first CD is the better of the two simply because more songs are played, though both performances are absolutely pristine in there execution but with extra songs like, ‘Wrath of the Tyrant’ or ‘Ye Entrancemperium’ I usually find myself reaching for this first CD. Anyway for these shows joining Ihsahn, Samoth and Trym were Sechthdaemon (Myrkskog, Odium, Zyklon) on bass duties while Einar Solberg (Leprous) handles synthesizer and backing vocal obligations.
Both shows kick off with a medley of, ‘Into the Infinity of Thoughts’ and ‘The Burning Shadows of Silence,’ though I would have much preferred the former just played in its entirety since its more or less my favorite black metal song. Nevertheless much to my delight most of the material played at these shows is from, ‘In the Nightside Eclipse’ and ‘Anthems to the Welkin at Dusk.’ There is one song played from, ‘Prometheus’ and as bad as that album is you’d think they could have played at least once of the almost decent songs from the album. Ya know songs like, ‘Empty’ or ‘Thorns on my Grave’ were not so bad, but instead they play the quite boring, ‘In the Wordless Chamber.’ Bah. Two songs from, ‘IX Equilibrium’ are also present though once again I’ll ask why it had to be, ‘Curse you all Men’ & ‘An Elegy of Icaros.’ Not entirely horrible songs but they were on the previous Emperor live disc back in 2000. Why not, ya know, play something different from this album?
Despite that little gripe I’m very pleased with the songs they played and just the simple fact that they played them perfectly. Also for a band that had not played together in over five years they surely didn’t miss a beat, sound tired or show any lack of interest in what was going on.
As for the DVD and the visual side of this box set, well it’s pretty good to say the least. I found it to be interesting the way just as the first notes of, ‘Into the Infinity of Thoughts’ echoed out to the crowd dusk was falling over the fans and ensnaring them in the impending darkness of Emperor’s music. The camera angles and video quality is absolutely perfect as you might expect too.
As I already mentioned the DVD is the same performance from Wacken so therefore wouldn’t it have made more sense to release the other audio CD from another of the dates on the tour? Yes, yes it probably would have. As for DVD extras there isn’t much. The behind the scenes thing consist of just a snippet of a press conference, a short guitar world jam session with Ihsahn and Samoth, and there is also some bootlegged footage from the tour most likely caught by fans or friends. Honestly now since this DVD official marks the end of Emperor wouldn’t it have been cool to do some sort of big production documentary on the band? Perhaps one of those VH1 Behind the Music sorts of things. Gather up all the old members and those close to the band and sit down and really discuss the band from day one to the end. That would have been excellent but at last, no.
All things considered if you’re an Emperor fan I see no reason to pass this by. It could have been A LOT better but it’s still very enjoyable be it the audio or video side of this box set.
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