Today in the mail I finally received my Valentine’s Day gift to myself – the jam-packed live DVD and CD offering from perhaps the greatest metal band of the first decade of the 2000′s. The offering? Alive. The band?

Meshuggah!

Riding the wave of success from their 2008 CD ObZen, the Swedish quintet went out on tour and filmed their shows in order to create one of the best live DVDs I have ever seen or heard. I will even step out on a limb here and say that it’s the second best I’ve ever seen.

(Rush in Rio DVD holds top honors in my opinion.)

The DVD

12 songs filmed in multiple cities, beautifully filmed and with amazing sounding audio. Meshuggah and company really spent a lot of time and energy getting everything right. Perfect mixes, lots of great band shots from multiple angles and, of course, the great music that Meshuggah is known for.

The song list for the DVD is:

• Perpetual Black Second
• Pravus
• Bleed
• New Millennium Cyanide Christ
• Stengah
• The Mouth Licking What You’ve Bled
• Electric Red
• Rational Gaze
• Lethargica
• Combustion
• Humiliative
• Straws Pulled at Random

The masters of metal, chillin'.

Blistering would be a good way to describe the energy from both the band and the audiences. Even the typically reserved Japanese crowd seemed to ignore their cultural proclivities and let the music take control of their souls.

The best song on the DVD is Bleed, but that’s probably because it’s my favorite Meshuggah song. Filmed in New York in a small club, I literally got chills several times, and that rarely happens to me when watching something that’s not a live performance.

My only complaint about the DVD — and this is coming solely from a selfish guitar player perspective — is that there were not nearly enough close-ups of what guitarists Mårten Hagström and Fredrik Thordendal were doing. Though I have not seen them play live (yet) I can certainly imagine how amazing it would be to see what they do up close. But I get it; this is a DVD for everyone, not just us guitar wankers.

The CD

Also recorded during the tour, the CD features the same 12 songs as the DVD but in a different order. I’m not sure why they did it that way, but it doesn’t matter.  I’ve been listening to the CD constantly since the DVD finished playing and it sounds incredible! Again, great audio engineering for a mid-budget (I assume) live CD.

Bonus Features

The DVD offers four bonuses: The video for the song Bleed from ObZen; A “Making of Bleed” behind-the-scenes mini-documentary; a quick guitar tour; a drum tour.

The guitar tour was somewhat disappointing. It was very short, hosted by the Meshuggah guitar tech, and didn’t really offer too much information. I would have liked to hear more about their custom 8-string guitars, tuning, and what amps and effects they use. (Yeah, I know… it says “guitar tour” not “guitar, amp, and effects tour. A guy can still wish, however…)

The Verdict?

If you are a fan of Meshuggah, or a fan of metal, or you just have some extra money lying around, you would be a fool to not run right out and purchase Alive. I would be very surprised if this doesn’t become one of the top 10 metal DVD/CD packages of the 2000′s.

In other words, GO OUT AND BUY IT!