This DVD is so professional that it almost hurts. The well-behaved Japanese audience is probably the perfect back drop for a DVD recording. They do what is expected from a proper audience: they cheer in the right places, they wave, they shut up and listen when spoken to and they mosh when the death metal battery of Nemesis is launched from Arch Enemy.

Other than that, the footage is sharp and not a complete chaos of cuts as some live recordings tend to be. The sound is so good that it makes you wonder how much it has been tampered with in post-production. Yes, it sounds excellent as you might have gathered!

Apart from that, we have this German chick and five Swedes, playing a selection of old and new material in a way that makes you think that it was too fucking bad that you weren’t there; each and every tune that spills over the edge of the stage sounds like a little melodic death metal master piece. There is much virtuosity in this band as well as a bunch of respect for the (classical) heavy metal tradition, ranging from Iron Maiden over Yngve Malmsteen to the most furious death metal.

I mean, we’ve heard shitloads of drum solos, but the way Daniel Erlandsson manages something as unusual as an impressive and atmosphere-filled drum solo is fantastic. And the Intermezzo Liberté piece from ‘Rise of the Tyrant’ is executed perfectly by the Amott brothers, Michael in particular.

Angela Gossow has a petite figure, but her presence is undeniably great and makes her the natural focal point – even if she’s not quite the stage acrobat as e.g. Dickinson.

The extra material consists partly of an interview part and the promo videos from ‘Rise of the Tyrant’. The interview/retrospective part, ‘The Road to Japan’ is in my view a lot less interesting than the concert and the promo shots - in particular I Will Live again - the über-hit from 'Rise of the Tyrant', but there you go, that probably stems from me being a fan of the band’s music rather than of the band. 45 minutes is MORE than enough, that’s for sure. The most interesting bits are when the Japanese audiences and scene are described and the way it influences the band’s benchmarks for their own performance.

The key part of this DVD is certainly the Tokyo concert – no doubt about that – and that alone is worth your pocket, methinks.