Misery Index – “Live In Munich” [Album Review]

I have to be honest and admit that I haven’t been to a proper death metal gig in absolutely forever and, listening to Baltimore slammers Misery Index drilling through their set on this live album makes me really miss it. I used to love coming out of stinky, grim venues smelling of sweat with my head feeling like someone was playing a blast-beat inside my skull and, you know what, as “Sleeping Giants” rattles this album into life, Misery Index have almost nailed that exact feeling.

I say almost nailed because, no matter how hard you try, and I include even the great live albums in this, no recording can compare to actually being at a metal gig. The sweat, the anticipation of the lights going out, the first song, the last song, the moment somebody headbangs so hard they send your pint flying, there is no record producer in the world who can capture and recreate those feelings on a computer. Having said that, Live In Munich does a damn fine job at showing why the hell you should shell out your hard earned cash next time Misery Index roll into your town. Or should that be steamroller through it because when Misery Index frontman Jason Netherton bellows “are you fuckers ready to grind?” as a precursor to the hellish “You Lose”, you can just picture a room full of pissed-up death metal fans absolutely losing their shit and, at the same time, wish you were right in the middle of it.

Sadly, for most fans those opportunities will be few and far between but that doesn’t seem so bad when you can listen to the band faithfully blast through renditions of “The Spectator” without losing any of the pristine sounding heaviness captured on their studio albums. So, with the band losing none of their devastating brutality that can be a common occurance when transferring something this raging from the studio to the hit n’ miss live environment while, at the same time, managing to almost capture the feel of a Misery Index gig, you could say that Misery Index fans will get the best of both worlds when they put this slab of slaying fury on their MP3 player which makes for wins all round.

Track Listing:

01. Sleeping Giants
02. The Carrion Call
03. You Lose
04. The 7th Cavalry
05. The Spectator
06. The Great Depression
07. The Illuminaught
08. Traitors
09. Siberian (2012 Remix)

Run Time: 34:19
Release Date: February 19, 2013

Check out the song “Siberian”