Label: BMG/Playground 2014
Review by: Urban "Wally" Wallstrom
"Let us burn and light up the skies here tonight". Recorded live at two separate events, the band's 15th anniversary Elements concert in November 13th 2012 (Sportpaleis/Antwerp) and at the Hydra European tour in May 3rd 2014 (Heineken Music Hall/Amsterdam). It's a total of 32 tracks and female fronted symphonic metal at its very best. The band is literally on fire and this double live CD release, no doubt one of the better live efforts as of lately. Everything is crisp, huge, and bombastic, and Sharon den Adel sings like a tiny goddess.
The Antwerpen show display an enthusiastic audience and have gladly parted with their hard earned money to go absolutely bonkers for the opening chords of "Iron". Like it or not, Yngwie 'Viking' Malmsteen is THE original source to many of these acts and tracks. You only need to have a quick listen to the following "In the Middle Of The Night" to realize just how much influence the neo-classical guitar God had on Within Temptation. It's the riff ála Devil In Disguise and marvelous keyboards and vocals by den Adel. What a marvelous track and catchy to the extreme. The lush piano moment of "Fire and Ice" set the place in flame and on fire and I believe it's still burning in Antwerp.
"Let us Burn" is the opening number at Amsterdam and crowd go positively ape you-know-what for "Faster" with its bass and drum piece. The acoustic versions of "Sinéad" and "Whole World Is Watching" are... dare I say better and stronger than any Tarja T outing as of lately. The only downside thing with Let Us Burn? with 32 songs on two concerts you're bound to have some repeats. Merely six of them though and that's not bad considering all those tracks and WT standards. Nice!
within-temptation.com
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