Distributed by

Cat.no: 501489

Cert: E

Running time: 73 minutes

Recorded: April 10, 1996

Pressing: 2000

Region(s): 2, PAL

Chapters: 14

Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1, PCM Stereo

Languages: English

Subtitles: None

Fullscreen: 4:3

16:9-enhanced: No

Macrovision: No

Disc Format: DVD 5

Price: £19.99

Extras : Scene index, Discography, Timeline

Alice in Chains: Unplugged lines up Jerry Cantrell, Mike Inez, Sean Kinney and Layne Staley without their electric implements of musical deliverance.

An audience of 400 saw the grunge-rock band perform on the MTV Unplugged stage in New York, their first performance in three years. The set mainly takes in tracks from the EP's Sap, Jar of Flies and the album Dirt. Three of the tracks - Frogs, Angry Chair and a new song, The Killer is Me, were not broadcast on TV before.

I've never been a fan of the group since their music is hardly ever played on the radio, particularly since they haven't released a single in the UK in four years. Listening to this DVD though, while we are first provided with the soft, lilting tones of Nutshell and the drugged-up-sounding Brother which surprisingly still draws you in, as the concert progresses it doesn't half sound like the now-defunct Nirvana. If you're a novice, like myself, close your eyes and try to tell the difference.

Of course, this band never got in the limelight so much because the lead singer didn't blow his head off with a shotgun...

Their singles chart history in the UK to date (August 2000) is as follows :

Jan 93	No.19	Would?
Mar 93	No.26	Them Bones
Jun 93	No.33	Angry Chair
Oct 93	No.36	Down in a Hole
Nov 95	No.23	Grind
Feb 96	No.35	Heaven Beside You

The picture is bog-standard 4:3 fullscreen, like all MTV Unplugged features, but while the picture is sharp and fairly well-detailed, the obvious NTSC-PAL conversion does have an effect. However, there are no artifacts visible and the average bitrate is 7.72Mb/s, often varying wildly around that mark.

Released in Dolby Digital 5.1 sound with PCM Stereo as an alternative option, the monotonous Kurt Cobain-like rantings and the same three guitar chords don't sound a great deal different in the former sound format as they do in the latter.

Extras etc. :

Chapters :

There are 14 chapters, one for each song as well as the intro sequence, while the end credits come within the last chapter. The track listing is as follows :

1. Programme Start

2. Nutshell

3. Brother

4. No Excuses

5. Sludge Factory

6. Down in a Hole

7. Angry Chair

8. Rooster

9. Got Me Wrong

10. Heaven Beside You

11. Would?

12. Frogs

13. Over Now

14. The Killer is Me / End credits

Languages/Subtitles :

All the songs are sung in English, or more usually mumbled out and there are no lyrics to singalongaAlice with onscreen.

And there's more... :

Only a couple of things: a brief Discography covering up to their greatest hits album and a Timeline - a series of stills with info and pics from the forming of the band in early 1987 to the aforementioned 'Best of' release on June 29th, 1999. Once you've read them once, I doubt you'll go back to them.

Menu :

Silent and static picture of the cover.

---

Obviously this disc will only attract fans of the band - £19.99 is not a price that would inspire an impulse purchase from anyone - but many of those will already have the video. With scant extras and not much use made of the Dolby Digital 5.1 sound, this isn't easy to recommend to anyone at full price.

For me, while I started to get into the first couple of tracks, call me a philistine but the rest just followed in the same vein.

FILM CONTENT PICTURE QUALITY SOUND QUALITY EXTRAS
OVERALL

Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 2000.