Spirits In The Forest (Cd/Bluray)

Firstly to set the record straight, followed this band since 1981, been to multiple dates on every tour since 83,bought every release and import available. So you would expect this is just a no brainier of a purchase yeah?! Uhhhhh NO!Firstly I’m going to review the packaging, quite simply awful! How can any band or even their management give this release the green light is beyond me?! Quite simply they must have just let SONY MUSICs cat give it the once over. Both came with damaged spines due to the poor quality of the cover and packaging, and then of course Amazon packaged it in something like a hard envelope. So in short both are going back. Now as for the rest of the contents,the cover is simply too small and flimsy to house the 4 discs and a booklet, and soon separated even just after opening from the backing, and all packaged in lacklustre Grey!! I’m sick of having grey on DM releases it’s truly shocking.As for the audio/video contents it’s poor, the audio captured is not of a band playing their songs with passion and great musicianship but a band going through the motions like a cabaret act. Who wants to hear the crowd erupting so much it spoils the music, and for god sake someone take away Christian Eigners Tom toms, he has more drum rolls than Phil Collins on a bad day.Depeche seem to be a ship that’s steering out of control in their latter years and yes the writing has been on the wall for some time but I really think the only thing that’s going to bring them back around is some grounding. Gahan has always been a great front man, but instead of his own style and moves he once had,he seems to have moved onto Jagger territory. Dave for god sake watch some Damned videos and remind yourself that we don’t want another Jagger we want DG back. Sadly the performance is marred by poor arrangements of classics, annoying fills, and more attention is paid to the crowd and as a fan I buy a depeche release for the band and not for the fans singing along to prop up the sound.Finally the film is ok, but do I want to see a film about DM fans?! NO as 101 was irritating enough. I want a film about the band. Sadly I feel this release is a huge opportunity missed but then again perhaps the album was too? DM never had the quality issues like this when they were on Mute Records, so get off Sony their have been so many blunders of late, talk to your fans the really old loyal ones as they know what the Masses want and will buy.Please drop all these additional musicians who seem to be taking you far away from what the true chemistry of DM is and possibly make up with the one who really used to Nail your sound and arrangements and solidify you Alan Wilder (even if only in a production level). This is for me the last live release I will buy by them again until things change, it’s too upsetting to watch my HEROES take a dive.

It’s time for the regular live DVD/documentary/2xCD release from the latest Depeche Mode tour. As a live release, it follows the same format as previous releases, recorded in a European city near the end of a tour, but with a twist.The first disc is the one-day only theatrical film “Spirits In The Forest”. The second is “Live Spirits” (allegedly) recorded at the final two shows of the tour, alongside 2 live CD’s with the concert soundtrack.Overall, it’s an underwhelming release. First and foremost, “Spirits In The Forest” seems to take a cue from the “101” movie 30 years later, following the same template, but with far smaller results. The idea of following a handful of fans as they tell their stories and travel to the final show of the tour is fascinating, but the results are simply impotent and limp. To be honest, this is like the band tried to copy Jeremy Deller’s far superior "The Posters Came From The Walls", or the equally cringeworthy "Springsteen And I", but chose people with no story to tell. I learn nothing about the band, or the people in the film, through this. The songs from the concert that intersperse these shallow and dull tales are chosen without any apparent care or skill, and the tales being told shed no light on the band, or their art, or their cultural position in the world, and express nothing more than the fact that the bands music was something the fans listened to when their lives were hard. I get it. Lives are hard. But the people they chose aren’t telling stories worthy of the attention passed onto them. There’s no insight here. There’s a great movie about Depeche Mode, fandom, and the cultural significance the band have/had, and the Jeremy Deller movie is it. It doesn’t help that the band themselves are mute, and say nothing throughout the whole thing, so its actually impossible to do anything but endure vapid comments from inarticulate fans with mundane stories whilst waiting for a snippet of randomly inserted concert footage every ten minutes. I’ll not watch it again.The real draw then, is the full live film of the bands last two Berlin shows. Over the two nights the band played a total of 31 songs, including bringing back a number of songs from earlier in the tour that haven’t had a live release at all. Naturally, when faced with such an abundance of riches, this live release shoots itself in the face by featuring all 20 songs from the final show, and none of the 11 they only played on the first night (including several – “So Much Love”, “Corrupt”, “Barrel Of A Gun”, the acoustic “Strangelove” - that have never been released in live video form). The sound of a ball being dropped is deafening. By the time the tour drew to an end, the band had stopped playing almost every song from their “Spirit” album, so 17 of the 20 songs on the set are former singles, and almost all of those have been tour staples for the past 30 years and released countless times on near enough every live DVD for the past twenty years. Make no mistake, live Depeche Mode are a great band, but they’re also a glum, gloomy hits machine, like a self-loathing AC/DC that ignores huge parts of their career in order to get the disco dads and miserable mums dancing in their seats.It ends (near enough) where it started. David Gahan's first audition for the band was singing Bowie's “Heroes” in a small room in Basildon in 1979. Tonight, the band play the same song in tribute to David Bowie : in a stadium in a German forest. It's a long way from home. No matter where we are, never forget who you have been and where you have come from.After that there’s “Just Can’t Get Enough”, which seems to have been recorded by a different band with the same name, 38 years ago. And then, like that, maybe Depeche Mode are over.So “Live Spirits” is a well shot, adequate live film of the last Depeche Mode show (for now, maybe forever). But it’s also a disappointment : the song selection misses eleven songs that were performed, the documentary is boring, and there are no extras at all : none of the many screen films shot by Anton Corbjin, no interviews, no documentary footage worth watching, no videos, not even the studio recording of “Heroes” (that’s on their YouTube channel), nothing at all : it’s a spartan package of a live show and some tedious interviews with some nobodies that you won’t watch twice, padded out to give the illusion of being more comprehensive than it is.Also, the cheap cardboard five-fold pack was ripped before it even arrived as its made out of thin card and feels cheap and lazy. The packaging is simply not up to the job, and not good enough, so a point deducted for that.

Damn, damn, damn. It only takes a look at the digisleeve packaging of this.and one can get instantly bemused. DM is one of the biggest bands out there, they can afford to offer a descent package for their releases. Instead, they exhibit such an annoying inconsistency when it comes to presenting their albums and live shows. This is amongst their worst presentations: a flimsy 5-fold cardboard case which hosts the 4 discs and the 20-page booklet so tightly that they can get ripped before you say 'forest'.The documentary is the highlight of the package (the cinematography is exemplary), the show as fantastic as it is expected (despite the glaring omission of "In your room" - inexcusable!), the CD audio beyond great, but the packaging completely ruins it for me. Prepare for creased spines upon arrival, and this time it is not going to be amazon's fault. It is DM themselves who said that 'precious and fragile things, need special handling', but they seem to forget it ever so often.

Even though I love DM, and the live concert is amazing (what a beautiful venue Berlin's Waldbuhne is) I'm disappointed the recording is missing at least two of my favourite tracks: In Your Room and Home, which they definitely played at those final two concerts. No extras or behind the scenes features either. It's a shame as it would have been perfect with those inclusions. It makes it more upsetting that the booklet includes shots of the band performing those two tracks (noticeable by the videos playing in the background). Still the best band in the world and still going strong 40 years after they started.