CD/DVD REVIEW: LIVE AT WACKEN 2015 – 26 Years Louder Than Hell

Shane | 6 October 2016 | Reply

CD/DVD REVIEW: LIVE AT WACKEN 2015 – 26 Years Louder Than Hell
UDR
26 August, 2016
Reviewed by Shane Pinnegar
8 ½ /10

Not for the faint-hearted, Wacken is a true heavy metal festival – perhaps the truest in the world, and certainly the most famous.

Gathered here is a precis of the acts from 2015’s enormous festival, featuring the likes of Judas Priest, Death Angel, Sabaton, Danko Jones, Uli Jon Roth, The Poodles, Europe, Cradle Of Filth, Skindred, The Answer and many more – an eclectic line-up, to say the least.

The double BluRay boasts 53 tracks across 35 bands, whilst the double CD trims that down to 35 tracks of all killer heavy metal.

Roughly grouped with Disc 1 featuring classic metal, the first section of Disc 2 being more extreme, and the last handful of tracks featuring new bands from Wacken’s ‘Metal Battle’ program, allowing unproven youngsters the chance to play on a big stage and appear on this CD. Of these, Savage Machine and Vesperia particularly shine.

Live At Wacken 2015 is obviously a compilation of highlights rather than any kind of comprehensive document of the festival (such a document would surely weigh in at dozens of discs), and bound to be of more interest to those who were there or kids wanting an overview of the movers and shakers in the metal world, but it also works as a stand-alone CD/DVD for any metal fan.