Therion

After the impossible-to-live-up-to multi-disc release Therion put out a few years ago, Live Gothic comes as an anti-climax but one that’s still worth watching, especially since this particular incarnation of the band are now a piece of Therion history. Like so many great metal shows, this performance was filmed in Poland during the 2007 Gothic Kabbalah tour. The band’s guitar/bass/drums core, led as always by Christofer Johnsson, works in tandem here with a male/female, four-vocalist line-up (including Snowy Shaw), mixing newer material with some Therion classics, performing all with equal effectiveness. After this, and without the theatrical professionalism that marks a full-budget Therion concert, the CD seems just a shadow of the DVD footage — redundant unless you feel the need to relive the music away from the screen.