Almost twenty years old as a band and thirteen years from their first EP, MOONSPELL finally releases their first official DVD called Lusitanian Metal. For those who doesn't have a clue about the title of the DVD, let me tell them that Lusitania was the greatest of the Iberian nations long before it became the Roman province of Lusitania (modern Portugal) and the ones that resisted the most to the Romans.

I assume that you didn't expect this review to learn the greatest band from Portugal and one of the most well known bands in the - I really hate that label - Gothic Metal scene and in the Metal scene in general. So, what do we have here? The standard edition has two DVDs. The first one has a full live show in Katowice, Poland in 2004, all the videos from Opium to Everything Invaded, a detailed discography and an interview from all the current MOONSPELL members. In the second DVD one can have a historical overview of the band, from their first gig 'till the tour they made for The Antidote album.

Lusitanian Metal can be found and as a limited edition mediabook including the two DVDs as well as an audio CD with the complete Katowice show and more pictures in the booklet. But let us see each DVD separately, and leave the CD aside.

So let's start with the the first DVD and the interview! Located in a cemetery in Lisbon, Fernando, Mike, Pedro and Ricardo remember the old years and how things started and developed. For almost fifteen minutes they are telling small stories about their early tours, their lives back in the early 90s'. A really interesting interview for any fan of the band that wants to find out how their favorite band begun. In the discography section you will see all the albums and EP's that MOONSPELL released for Century Media. My only objection here is that they didn't choose a song for the (each time) current album that you are seeing but it always plays How We Became Fire. The section with the video clips has nothing new, except from the making of Everything Invaded which is quite interesting and funny. It gives an idea of what sometimes bands are going through in order to make a good video clip. As for the live in Katowice itself? Well let's start with that: I strongly believe that there is no live album that hasn't been tuned in the studio. So this show is not an exception. But, nevertheless, the band seems that it was in a demonic form and they enjoyed it. Their appearance onstage is the typical one for MOONSPELL: excellent! And, with no doubt, for one more time, Rebeiro gave 100% as always and proved once more what a great performer is. The direction is, of course, a professional one, with lots of cameras giving the pulse both on stage and from the fans' side. For the end, I really liked the part were Ribeiro grabbed the drum sticks and started hitting the plates alongside Mike during the last song, Full Moon Madness.

As for the second DVD, you'll witness the live history of MOONSPELL through 53 lives video tracks. From their early old school live rehearsals recordings back in 1992 'till the live footage from the Spreading The Eclipse Tour. The quality of the videos and the sound is not the best, since some of them are probably from VHS, but it's interesting to see the band making its first steps and how they evolved their sound and their appearance during the years. The videos are from all the tours they did until 2005, including a full show in Dortmund back in 1996.

To tell you the truth, it took me almost seven hours (!!!) to see both the DVD's, read the booklet and listen to the live CD. There are not many things to write anymore. After MOONSPELL fought with monsters better known as labels' bureaucracy and lawyers, they finally gave us their first DVD. This release is a must-have item for all metalheads. This is the history of one of the most well known bands of our scene. MOONSPELL respected their fans by giving them pure music and not backstage clips since ... you can have people puking and talking crap in every other Metal band's DVD,  as Rebeiro wrote in the prologue of the booklet, and tried to stay focused in the historical view of the band. If you haven't bought it yet, you'd better do it now!