Review of Dissection - Live Legacy

Dissection has built quite a legacy despite the fact that they only have two full length releases under their belt. With releasing The Somberlain in 1994 they quickly made a name for themselves. The Somberlain was only a preview of their most potent release in 1995, Strom of the Light’s Bane. For those of you not familiar with this great band’s sound, Dissection was able to blend well executed melodic death (which is no surprise considering they’re from Sweden) and cold grim black metal. With a mix of entwining harmonies, frozen fast riffing, and grim cold vokills, it was nothing short of amazing. Fans still argue about what genre the band really falls under (the band claim themselves to be death metal, while there is a significant number of fans calling them black metal), but really it’s a pointless argument because whatever you want to call it one fact remains, and that is that it’s SOLID EXTREME METAL. Unfortunately this band’s future was cut drastically short because of the acts of singer/songwriter/guitarist Jon Nödtveidt. For whatever reason he felt it was necessary to participate in the act of murder shortly after the release of Storm of the Light’s Bane and is now sitting in a Swedish prison awaiting release sometime in 2004. The band claims it will pick up where it left off after his release and with Faust (ex-Emperor, who was just released from prison) picking up the drums. Being a huge fan of this band I personally can’t wait for some new material. Anyway, enough about the past and the future, what about the present? It seems that in 1996 at the Wacken Open Air Festival, Dissection’s set was recorded, but the recording isn’t seeing the light of day until now in 2003 under the name Live Legacy. Live Legacy contains two tracks off of The Somberlain and five others off of Storm of the Light’s Bane. The album starts off with the opener from SOTLB entitled “At the Fathomless Depths”, which quickly kicks off into the classic “Retribution-Storm of the Light’s Bane.” I know a lot of people call live albums greatest hits albums in disguise, but it’s not always the truth. If the sound isn’t cleaned up a lot and you have a lot of interaction with the crowd then you have a legitimate live album on your hands. Live Legacy can’t really match up to either a solid live album or “greatest hits”. With only a forty minute set you only get six full songs (“At the Fathomless Depths” is an instrumental intro) and the crowd is briefly heard before the beginning of each song and at the end. For example: a brief rumble of the crowd is heard, one whistle, quick intro of the song by Jon, and the crowd is never heard again until the song drains off at the end, which in turn leads to another low rumble. The band could at least get the crowd screaming along with the lyrics of their classic anthem “Where Dead Angel Lie” or get a good chant going or something. Instead you get nothing of the sort except the band running through their set. This is why I don’t really enjoy live albums because too often they end up like this one. On the plus side, the bands sound is really fluid and clear. The drums sound especially crisp. I can’t really see putting down the money for this one at all unless you are an absolute die-hard Dissection fan and must own every release (or you need something to tide you over until their next full length studio release which won’t be until at least 2004). Personally I think I’ll be just as happy with just their two full length studio releases. If you haven’t heard Dissection before I do highly recommend you check them out. Storm of the Light’s Bane is one of my favorite albums and I highly recommend it, but don’t feel bad about passing up Live Legacy.

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Dissection

Live Legacy

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