Editorial Review:Album Description:Recorded May 1 2006 at Kentish Town Farm, Live from London 2006 features the amassed crew of Mike Patton, Buzz Osborne, Dave Lombardo, Trevor Dunn, Dale Crover and Dir David Scott Stone. Filmed by Douglas Pledger, Matthew Rozeik and Alex Gunnis, the music is culled from the sole Fantomas/Melvins Big Band release Millennium Monsterwork, as well as music from both the Melvins and Fantomas catalogs, Bonus feature is an audio commentary with Danny DeVito, Ipecac co-owner Greg Werckman, booking agent Robby Fraser, Melvins' Dale Crover and Buzz Osborne. A Melvins US Tour starts July 15 and runs through August 31st 2008.
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Average Rating:
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A six-headed musical Sasquatch captured on video.
Line up:
Mike Patton (vocals, samples, sound effects, etc.) - Fantomas, Tomahawk, Peeping Tom, ex-Mr. Bungle, ex-Faith No More.
Buzz Osborne (guitar, vocals) - The Melvins, Fantomas.
Dale Crover (drums, vocals) - The Melvins.
Dave Lombardo (drums) - Fantomas, Slayer.
Trevor Dunn (bass) - Fantomas, Trio Convulsant, John Zorn, ex-Mr. Bungle.
David Scott Stone (guitar, bass, noise) - occasional member of The Melvins and Big Business, as well as numerous other projects.
The Fantomas Melvins Big Band is a combination of members of Fantomas and The Melvins. They occasionally play shows together as a collective, and this DVD perfectly captures the heavy Sludge of The Melvins and the noisy insanity of Fantomas. The only other product that has been released for public consumption by this beastly musical collective is a live album from 2002 entitled MILLENIUM MONSTERWORK 2000. This live DVD surpases that live album by leaps and bounds in many apsects. For one, you can actually witness this display of unbelievable musicianship with your own eyes. The sound quality is also a lot better and so is the track list, which is heavy on The Melvins discography, has bits and pieces from different Fantomas albums, and has two cover songs ("Lowrider" by WAR and the show opener "Sacrifice" by Flipper).
The audio quality on the DVD is pretty good for the most part, however pretty inaudible during "The Omen", partly because there was so much going on in that song. The video quality is not outstanding, but very watchable. It's a lot of grainy footage with added effects to make the show a bit more interesting (superimposed fire, weird robot-looking things, a random Sesame Steet puppet, etc.). The actual show itself is fantastic. The musicianship is phenomenal and I often found myself thinking about how they could possibly keep up with each other during the Fantomas songs. My personal highlights of the DVD included the almost freestyle improv session at the end of "Page 14", the beautiful rendition of Melvins' "Skin Horse", the strange cover of "Lowrider", the encore performance of "Spider Baby", and Dale Crover absolutely annihilating the drums, almost putting Dave Lombardo to shame. My only complaints are that I wish they would have included more songs from the SUSPENDED ANIMATION album, the intro to "Page 14" was incredibly slow and drug on for what seemed like forever which feels like it killed the momentum of the show, the lack of DVD extras (some rehearsal footage maybe?), and the video quality and camera shots left much to be desired. However, those are all minor. The DVD has a run time of about an hour and twenty minutes and is an absolute must see for fans of (either/or) Fantomas and The Melvins.
The only DVD extra is a full commentary by Dale and Buzz of The Melvins, Danny Devito (yes, the actor), Ipecac Recordings co-owner Greg Werckman, and the guy who booked the Live in London show. It's actually not as dumb as you might think it would be with the random inclusion of Danny Devito (and the absence of Mike Patton). For the most part it's the guys asking each other questions and telling stories. I would have liked to have seen a full commentary with the entire band(s), but this one is still worth checking out.
4 stars
Rating: 
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Solid performance
A great show for Fantomas and Melvins fans alike.
If your a fan of both, like me, you'll love it.
The track list is a little different than the live CD they put out a few years ago, there's more songs, and its better quality.
Gotta love the 2 drummers up there together - 2 legends at the top of their game.
Rating: -
A unique performance
Fantomas and Melvins together are just a different experience, seeing them together is a dream for every fan, this performance is completely stunning live, almost a perfect performance, they sound same or even better than the studio version. This show clearly isn't for everybody, so if someone wants to see and hear something challenging , should pick this DVD!
Rating: -
head pounding artistry
Anyone who likes the melvins and fantomas will enjoy this dvd. For those who cannot stomach either band for more than five minutes should stay clear. This is a great live performance.
Rating: -
Almost Perfect
I don't think it is necessary to tell you that if you're a big fan of Fantomas or the Melvins you should've bought this by now. It is a great DVD, and I have to disagree with the reviewer above me who said that the 'camera tricks' are 'cheesy'. It alternates between crystal clear high definition, and darker and grainy image with a light 'splash' of camera effects and graphics. This gotta be the first show I've seen with computer graphics added that don't suck a big one (like a few i've seen with big explosions, outer space images and planets coming at you, or some others with colorful distorted computer polygons or whatever, now that's cheesy).
It is done in my opinion in a very artistic taste and it succeeds in creating a proper atmosphere. The music sound loud and again great sound quality. It would've been neat if they played at least one excerpt from "Delirivm Cordia", but the 'song' selection is alright anyways.
The only thing that prevented me from giving this DVD a 5 star rating instead of 4, is that the audio is NOT in surround, NOT in stereo but in MONO. Yes, that means that the surround speakers from your home theater are completely useless when you play this DVD. Only the front, left and right speakers are the ones that you're going to get any sound from.
I thought it was pretty weird that somebody releases a DVD that is not even in stereo, but maybe that's why the price is so cheap.
Besides that detail, it sounds great, I totally recomend this to anybody who digs Patton or the melvins and I wish they release more in the future.
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