Artist: Therion
Title: “Live Gothic”
Label: Nuclear Blast Records
Release Date: 8/6/2008
Genre: Progressive Symphonic Metal
Rating: 4.5/5

Always an impressive idea in the musical sense the one and only Therion have paused between studio albums to deliver to us “Live Gothic”, an album that captures the band onstage and focusing on their previous studio epic “Gothic Kabbalah”. Those who have known about the band are already aware of the very big production that they put on and this combination double CD and DVD film bring you right into the crowd at a spectacular show performed in front of a diehard audience in Warzaw, Poland. The release that this tour supported had a very stage performance feeling to it, and I don’t just mean in the quality of its songs but also in the manner in which I felt it was being delivered. To me this was as much a Symphonic Metal album as it was something akin to the Broadway stage so when it was announced that there would be a live DVD film for it I was rather excited. The performance while done in support of the “Gothic Kabbalah” album only features six tracks from the release and chooses to mix up a wider number of songs from the bands earlier years. This appealed to me as I was a latecomer to what they could do in their music so hearing any older track performed live was quite the treat. Fans know that the core membership of Therion is Christofer Johnsson (guitar/core composer), Kristian Niemann (guitars/keyboards), Johan Niemann (bass/acoustic guitar) and Petter Karlsson (drums) and these players are always joined by a company of singers and sometimes additional musicians as necessary.
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