Andromeda
Playing Off the Board

In the course of the '90s, progressive metal "à la Dream Theater" spread throughout (almost) the entire world, at times producing not-so-satisfactory results with bands that turned out to be mere, overly simplistic, and incredibly dull clones of the Prog Metal Gods. Other times, however, this wave of progressive metal resulted in exceptional outcomes, of superb quality, even distancing itself from that often-mimicked Dream Theater sound. Among the latter, one of the most precious gems is represented by the work of the Swedish Andromeda, born in 1999 (an important year for prog metal, given that an iconic album of the genre and, in my opinion, of all time, Metropolis pt. 2: Scenes from a Memory by Dream Theater, is from this year). On April 10, 2007, they released a DVD titled "Playing off the Board", featuring footage from a concert held in Katowice, Poland, during the Chimera tour.

About 87 minutes of great music invaded the small Slaski Theater, which hosted an audience not up to par with the giants performing on that stage: silent, very unreactive, and incredibly cold are the right attributes for those few Poles who had the honor, it must be said, to witness a milestone of progressive rock. The execution of the songs was absolutely impeccable, worthy of praise from any lover of the genre and music in general. The choice of songs that make up the setlist, 11 excellent tracks that guide the viewer through their career up to that point, is very well-chosen and varied, with very effective track pairings. The lights go up and one starts immediately with a bang with "Periscope", from their then-latest album, Chimera, a declaration of intent for what this concert will be: powerful, technical, virtuosic but also very elegant and sophisticated; it continues with a return to the origins, "In the Deepest of Waters," the third track from their debut album, Extension of the Wish, followed by a great masterpiece of the band, "Two Is One," the title track of Andromeda's second effort. And I could go on listing every song performed by the quintet. But why completely spoil the tracklist of a DVD that everyone should watch?

As already mentioned, the audience in Katowice is the most negative aspect of the entire DVD, but unfortunately, it's not the only one: in a live DVD, the direction and editing are crucial, aspects that, in this "Playing off the Board", don't reach adequacy, in my opinion. The direction is characterized by crude and self-serving camera movements that clash with the elegance showcased by Andromeda's music, tied mainly to the handheld cameras of the operators on stage, at times a bit too intrusive, limiting the movements of the artists performing, and what I imagine was a drone for aerial shots, which moved elegantly but pointless, so much so that, at times, the quintet led by Johan Reinholdz wasn't even visible or was relegated to the background. The editing tries to make up for poor directing but doesn't quite succeed. Another negative element, though less severe than the ones listed above, is the choice of stage costumes for three of the musicians: the marvelous Reinholdz, on guitar, appears on stage shirtless, showing the audience a hairy chest that he could have easily concealed by wearing a nice shirt; David Fremberg, the singer, wears a black tank top and a mesh shirt that is decidedly in bad taste (fortunately, during his absence on stage about halfway through the concert, he removes it, staying in just the tank top); Thomas Lejon, on the other hand, wears a kilt behind the drums, but fortunately, stays hidden the entire time, at least until the final bow. I would have preferred a bit less eccentric attire. The clothing worn by Fabian Gustavsson, whose fingers move excellently over his five-string bass, and Martin Hedin, whom I dare to define as "the Swedish Jordan Rudess," is decidedly better. The last negative element is related to the limited space on which the five artists performed and the intrusive operators: in fact, Reinholdz and Fremberg often ended up overshadowing the other band members, especially Gustavsson and Hedin.

But, leaving aside these few aspects, "Playing off the Board" is truly a small masterpiece of live DVDs, both for the quality of the performances of the five and for the choice of a truly high-level setlist: I'm just sorry that Veil of Illumination, my absolute favorite Andromeda song, was missing. To describe this DVD, one word is enough: masterpiece. Or rather: mästerverk.