Mystifier - Aztec Assault "Antiguos Himnos para la Dominación del Mundo" FLAC album

This DVD practically fell in my lap so I decided to blast it through my stereo home theater to see how good this Brazilian band were in a live situation. I had listened to their Goetia and Wicca CD -their very first full lengths- before and didn't think much of them, apart from thinking they were influenced by Blasphemy and early Venom and Sarcófago, which is a good thing, but that fact alone didn't set them apart from the myriad of other bands on the Brazilian scene that play the same style.

Man did this live DVD changed my mind! The live versions of the album songs are so much better it's unbelievable! Yes, there were some execution mistakes, but nothing abnormal in a live situation. They only played songs from Wicca and Goetia, probably due to the fact that the Mexican audience were more familiar with their older material and promoters often request that the bands play crowd-pleasers only, or maybe it is that those two are their best albums by far.

The 75' gig is superbly shot with only two cameras at a Mexican bar in 2013, with the stage located in a corner, and the band members so close to one another they could not move an inch in any direction, belting out an incredible song selection from their iconic full-lengths. The bassist also plays keyboards and has to take turns at the instruments, so no actual keyboard backdrop to the songs, except when he triggers some samples, but they are more of an afterthought used to provide atmosphere to the intros, outros, and occasional breaks.

The ultra-crisp picture is in a very narrow aspect ratio, my guess is 2:35 or 2:20 to 1, a current trend I know, but I never understood why a product intended to be watched at home on a 16:9 screen has to sport wide black bars on the top and bottom of it. The sound is almost perfectly mixed; drums are thunderous, bass is gutsy when it has to play rhythm along the drums and trebly when it follows the guitar lines. The bassist sings his lungs out in a variety of registers, from deep growling to high-pitched shrieking, and even a nice clean voice when the occasion called for. A curious detail is both guitar and bass are panned somewhat louder to the left and right to match the visuals, that is to say guitarist on the left channel and bassist on the left. Everything is played in a purposefully sloppy way; just a look at the bassist's nimble fingering on the fretboard gives away the fact this guy can really play anything.

All in all a very enjoyable primitive, powerful death/black metal DVD.