The Official 20th Anniversary Concert Album
(Mausoleum Records)
54:26min
With all respect to the participating artists, I really would like to know who’s supposed to buy a release like this..?! I mean, all power to Mausoleum Records who had the balls to stick around for twenty long years in this fucked up business by now and who organized this live event on May 10, 2002 at Belgium’s Biebob Club. But honestly – is there really a demand for a live compilation of selected material by underdogs like OSTROGOTH and Belgium’s KILLER? Ok, both bands used to make themselves a name back in the 80s and released some excellent tunes throughout their career, but time marches on… And with having this in mind I wouldn’t really consider the material for this album as the best choice to represent those two acts. Especially the classic OSTROGOTH tunes with Marc De Brauwer on vocals (‘Full Moon’s Eyes’, ‘Too Hot’ and ‘Queen Of Desire’) definitely didn’t stood the test of time. They simply sound average and extremely outdated nowadays. Way better is the stuff with Peter De Wint singing (‘The Hunter’, ‘We Are The Ace’ and ‘Samurai’), which is still extremely powerful and great fun to listen to, even today. A strong Marc Storace (KROKUS) similarity in the vocal department has always been there, but this is entirely convincing as hell, nevertheless! Thumbs up! KILLER used to release a helluva killer (…) record with "Shockwaves", which almost had become their breakthrough release, but unfortunately none of the tracks on offer here are from that album. Instead you’ll get ‘Kleptomania’, ‘Blinded’ (both from "Wall Of Sound") and ‘Ready For Hell’ (from the album of the same name), which are ok, but by no means of the same class as any of the "Shockwaves" tunes. But the most embarrassing part is yet to come… DORO, Germany’s most famous (and most stupid) "Metal" singer, performs two of her old WARLOCK "classics" (‘All We Are’ and ‘Burning The Witches’) with KILLER backing her up. I really have no idea how the hell she managed to get this far in this business (we probably have to blame it on her being a blonde female), cause musically this is so incredibly bad that it’s completely beyond belief. So, to cut the crap: cool idea to celebrate the 20th Anniversary of a legendary Heavy Metal label with a small festival, but to release little bits and pieces of it on CD is rather superfluous, especially considering the quality of the song material. And I certainly wouldn’t have spent my bucks on this just for the three great OSTROGOTH tracks alone…
Frank Stöver