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Magick Records
Review by Rob Kern
For 16 years now the Wacken Open Air festival has been one of the premier heavy metal/hard rock events in Europe. For three days a year the sleepy town of Wacken becomes the hub of all that is heavy metal for over 30,000 attendees. Featuring multiple stages and what has to be a logistical migraine, the festival has grown in leaps and bounds since its inception and has become the envy of stateside metalheads. Some of the highlights of the 2004 Wacken festival have been documented in a triple cd and double dvd set Armageddon Over Wacken Live 2004.
Breaking each disc into segments, the live discs lay out 46 tracks covering Black, Death and Thrash metal (disc 1), Traditional and Power metal (disc 2) and New/Underground metal (disc 3). Featuring big hitters: Dio, Anthrax, Motorhead; long time fan favorites: Death Angel, Cannibal Corpse, Doro; plus newer/underground acts: Reckless Tide, Dr. Rock, Gun Barrel; plus tons of other acts familiar and unheard. The package does a fine job of bringing in the listener via the big name acts and then having them stick around to discover a few new bands that might have never crossed the casual fans’ radar.
In a package of this undertaking, there are going to be some quibbles: some bands at the festival omitted altogether while others only getting one track. I for one would have loved to see Death Angel and Feinstein get two tracks, but in the big picture you are not going to please everyone. All in all, Armageddon Over Wacken Live 2004 does a solid job presenting its product in this package. The fans that were lucky enough to attend the 2004 festival will have themselves a great memento of their trip while the rest of us will listen with envy and hope to save our nickels and dimes to someday make the trek to Wacken Open Air.
Rating: 82/100