Vital Remains

Filmed in Katowice, Poland, the touring line-up of Vital Remains recorded a vapid and vacuous performance for their first ever DVD. After spending over an hour watching Dave Suzuki make himself look like a session musician, one can’t help but be somewhat disheartened. Though his parts obviously require a high calibre of musicianship to craft and are by no means easy to pull off, the number of flubs is unfortunately high, naturally bringing about some questions regarding skill and consistency. Tony Lazaro holds it down but the rest of the live fill-ins are mediocre: the drummer has a problem keeping tempo, the bass player is practically non-existent in the mix and the vocalist most just makes ugly faces at the audience when he’s not struggling for breath between barks. The most tantalising extra is the interview but even that isn’t particularly intriguing. One would assume their first DVD offering might have been invested with a little more effort but I guess when you’ve got a limited budget, you don’t have any choice but to take the first cut.