Various - Broken (DVD)   

Great idea but in need of some more work

Animus Industries are a creative company dedicated to the production of alternate film and music. Started in 2005 by Barry Harvey and Nick Calpakdjian in Melbourne (AUS), they have their collective hands in the writing and producing of film projects, music videos and the design work of album covers, DVD menus, posters and much more for Australian bands such as A Darker Shade and Breaking The Fall. Their most recent production is a collection of known and underground Aussie heavy music videos and a few bonus Norwegian metal clips as well called Broken.

The Australian contingent of Broken is a fairly mixed bunch but seems to be ever so slightly skewed towards nu-metal influenced acts. There are a couple of new comers to the big name Aussie hard rock circuit early on to kick things off with the washed out chaotic look of The Butterfly Effect's One Second Of Insanity and Karnivool's bland performance video clip to Lifelike appearing early on. For those who still dig what nu-metal has to offer, there's Greyn's bizarre clip to the equally bizarre Mandelbrot, the rock meets nu-metal Waste Of Time from Side Effect X and the funky and melodic Fly from Sick Puppies which shows the odd hint of nu-metal from time to time. Mixing the Aussie contingent of this compilation up is the criminally underrated Mark Of Cain with their graphic and bloody video for [R] Retaliate, the hip hop rock of Nokturnl's Nevamind (in which the lead singer looks like Ice T from the early Body Count days), the Alice In Chains like chorus of .hinge's Ring Of The Gypsy Bitch, the straight up hardcore flavour of No Grace's Last Time, and the bad NIN or Marilyn Manson sounding remix of A Darker Shade's Shiney Push Buttons which pointlessly overuses the work 'fuck'. The video clips can be watched in a play all stream or they can be chosen individually via the chapter selection option. Each of the bands also has a very brief (approximately one paragraph) block of information about them included as an extra on the disc which, whilst good in concept, could have been put to more effective use by proving a little more information about each of the acts.

The final extra on the disc (Ok, I'm excluding the Credits as anything of viewing value) is the inclusion of three underground Norwegian metal acts. First up is death metal act Chton with their very cliched clip for Book Of Black Earth, followed by the live clip from black metallers Keeper Of Kalessin with Come Damnation, and finally FortyTwo's fired up Euro melodic death metal influenced Blindfolded.

It's a bit misleading for this DVD to be dubbed “A compilation of Australian heavy metal and hard rock music videos”. There's plenty of Aussie hard rock but no heavy metal. Where's Infernal Method? Where's Pathogen or Switchblade or Ruins or Alchemist? The Norwegian contingent is nice but the primary purpose of this release is to promote Aussie heavy music. The diversity of music is fine but for a first release effort overall, it's average. The intention is all well and good but there's a lot more that this release should have done to live up to that expectation.

(Animus Industries/MGM Distribution)

Added: February 1st 2006
Reviewer: Simon Milburn
Score:
Related Link: Official Website
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