NEW MESHUUUUUUGAAAAAAHHHHHH! dvd :(

Four years after the release of Alive, their last concert DVD, Meshuggah are back with another: The Ophidian Trek, due out this fall on DVD and BluRay with 2 CDs of the audio. No exact release date has been announced.

I lurv Meshuggah as much as the next guy, but here’s the thing: in 2014, the age of YouTube, is there really that much of a market for concert DVDs? I ask that as a genuine question to which I do not know the answer: do people buy this stuff? Outside of the obsessives that need to have everything, of course.

It seems as if someone has gone to great lengths to pull down from YouTube all of Meshuggah’s pro-shot footage from their 2013 Wacken performance — which is included on this DVD — which is noteworthy given how easy it is to find footage of nearly all the other bands that played. I guess this is smart business if you’re Nuclear Blast and about to release something you’re going to sell. But why not just leave it all up on YouTube and monetize it that way via ad revenue instead of going through the expensive rigamarole of manufacturing and shipping product? Those YouTube videos will continue to collect views forever whereas DVD sales will peter out shortly after release. I guess they must think they’ll sell a good number of these.

Speaking as a viewer, I’d rather just watch full-screen on YouTube than have another piece of plastic around the house, or connect it to my TV via AppleTV to have the real cinematic experience.

So, inquiring minds would like to know: do you still buy concert DVDs? Chime in below.

Here’s the tracklist. The visual component comes from the aforementioned Wacken performance and various shows around the US and Europe.

Live DVD:

01 – Swarmer
02 – Swarm
03 – Combustion
04 – Rational Gaze
05 – obZen
06 – Lethargica
07 – Do Not Look Down
08 – The Hurt That Finds You First
09 – I Am Colossus
10 – Bleed
11 – Demiurge
12 – New Millennium Cyanide Christ
13 – Dancers To A Discordant System
14 – Mind’s Mirrors / In Death – Is Life / In Death – Is Death
15 – The Last Vigil

Live CD 1:

01 – Swarmer
02 – Swarm
03 – Combustion
04 – Rational Gaze
05 – obZen
06 – Lethargica
07 – Do Not Look Down
08 – The Hurt That Finds You First
09 – I Am Colossus

Live CD 2:

01 – Bleed
02 – Demiurge
03 – New Millennium Cyanide Christ
04 – Dancers To A Discordant System
05 – Mind’s Mirrors / In Death – Is Life / In Death – Is Death
06 – The Last Vigil