The advertising copy promotes the double DVD "Metallica: The Halcyon Days" as "the essential critical review of the hardest rocking band in the world." The fact that the set is completely unauthorized and has received very little publicity makes us dubious of the claim. In other words, that's a boldfaced discmaimer: Don't send us letter bombs if you buy this and it turns out to be the worst documentary since "The Aristocrats."
But if you get excited about unauthorized metal documentaries that feature loads of interviews with so-called experts in the field including "band insiders" and "the foremost rock critics and metal heads in the industry," then by all means get ready for June 10, when this set hits the market.
The first disc of "Metallica: The Halcyon Days" covers the history of the band from its formation in Los Angeles in 1981 through its first three albums, "to the end of what fans still nostalgically remember as the 'Burton Era.'" Clearly, there are no interviews with the late-Burton, and we're guessing there probably aren't any interviews with any current Metallica members either. Hell, there might not even be any concert footage.
Although, according to a British Web site pre-selling the DVDs (one of the few we could find), the second disc on "The Halcyon Days" is "packed with the best performances of a career at the top." Aside from being a tremendous case of hyperbole, we think there's something grammatically wrong with that sentence. The band is at the top, not the career, right?"
Anyway, back to the promo ad copy, which reads that the second DVD will follow the band's story from Burton's death all the way through what it calls, get this, "the seminal 2003 masterpiece St. Anger." Maybe we'll have to pick it up just to see who all those "foremost rock critics" are that actually praised the album.
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