The annual Wacken Open Air festival in Germany (a festival yours truly attended in 2003), documents its 2004 year with this three disc set of all live performances. The music here covers all styles of Heavy Metal from new comers on the rise like Finland’s Children of Bodom and power metaller’s Brainstorm, to classics Motorhead, thrash metal by New York’s Anthrax (still with John Bush at the time), the legendary voice of Dio, German thrash by Destruction and zombie carnage from Cannibal Corpse. You also get a lot of lesser known bands to try out but names you may have heard of; Mystic Prophecy, Kotipelto, Feinstein, Raunchy, Mayhem (most have probably heard of their insane extra curricular satanic/murderous activities) and Mnemic. Other known acts are Nevermore, Blaze Bailey (ex-Iron Maiden singer), the rejuvenated Death angel, Cathedral and Zodiac Mindwarp. All bands are represented by one track with the old timers like Motorhead, Dio and Anthrax appearing twice.

The sound quality is from the mixing boards and perfect, this is not bootlegged at all. Across the board from the extreme sounds of death/black metal to the more melodic traditional bands everything is well mixed and balanced and strong representations of each artist and how they really sound. Nothing is any different from how they appear on disc. Also another good thing is the lack of crowd noise that does not bleed into the band’s performance and is saved for the beginnings or end to each track.

As much as I enjoy these audio live tracks its nothing like watching the performances so if you don’t pick this up the DVD is a definite. This festival is so massive, averaging around 35,000 every year, and once you get to see a performance from it, or actually get to attend, you will laugh at what the States has to offer with Ozzfest. Sorry to say about my own country but its true, Ozzfest doesn’t have a clue, but ProgPower and BWBK Six Pack do.