Murder In The Front Row: The San Francisco Bay Area Thrash Metal Story. In the early 1980’s, a small group of dedicated Bay Area headbangers shunned the hard rock of MTV and Hollywood hairspray bands in favor of a more dangerous brand of metal that became known as thrash! From the tape trading network to the clubs to the record stores and fanzines, director Adam Dubin reveals how the scene nurtured the music and the music spawned a movement. Murder In The Front Row is told through powerful first person testimony and stunning animation and photography. The film is a social study of a group of young people defying the odds and building something essential for themselves. Featuring interviews with Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer, Anthrax, Exodus, Testament, Death Angel, Possessed and many more! Narrated by Brian Posehn.
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Video Quality
Murder In The Front Row: The San Francisco Bay Area Thrash Metal Story comes to Blu-Ray from MVD Entertainment with a very pleasing high definition master that suits the film pretty much perfectly. As is typical with this type of documentary structure, the feature showcases different types of material in varying degrees of quality depending on the source. The newer interview segments look crisp and clear with natural skin tones and some detailed facial features. With this lot we have a lot of facial hair and weathered t-shirts which appear quite detailed in HD. The archival footage used seems to be in the best shape possible given the variable quality of the source material. This includes amateur candid material and other vintage clips shot from this time period. The colors featured in the footage have a nice saturation which is presented well. The transfer does not fall victim to any compression artifacts or digital nuisances of the sort. MVD Entertainment has delivered a solid presentation that should please any fan.
Audio Quality
This Blu-Ray disc comes with a DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio and a LPCM 2.0 track that works really well with the source material to provide the immersive quality you want from these tunes. While interviews dominate the runtime with a steady stream of talking heads, the sound quality of the songs they do include never falters and permeates the room in a wonderful way that provides a nice facsimile of the actual concerts. Dialogue is nice and clear up front in the center channel as you get colorful anecdotes filmed in stable environments. Archival clips are stable without much in the way of age-related wear outside the odd moment here or there. The surround sound presentation makes the soundtrack come alive in a way that makes you understand why this scene took off like it did. You really could not ask for better from this presentation. There are optional English SDH, French, German, Spanish and Greek subtitles provided.
Special Features
- Audio Commentary: Director Adam Dubin provides a terrific commentary track which is especially helpful to those who are not as familiar with this scene. He does a great job of delving into what he was trying to accomplish with this documentary in terms of really putting the scene into context with its place in history. Dubin gives you so much extra information about each subject and the information they are relaying that you almost feel as if you are getting a second version of the doc which fleshes things out even further. Do not skip out on this!
- Extra Footage: A ton of great unused footage is provided here which provided fun moments with the interview subjects both from the production of the documentary as well as moments surrounding the release of the film.
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- More Megadeth (1:15)
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- Selling Thrash Metal (1:55)
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- Ruthie’s Inn Bonus (0:54)
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- Cliff Loves Death Angel (0:56)
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- Ruthie’s Inn Bathroom (0:53)
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- Death Angel Loves Metallica (0:55)
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- Selvin Remembers Metallica (0:50)
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- Battle Jacket (2:01)
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- Brian and Harald Photography (3:49)
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- Blood Brother (0:35)
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- Brian’s 19th Birthday (1:08)
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- Making An Exodus Demo (1:44)
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- Gary Holt’s 1st Job (1:06)
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- Kerry King’s Spikes (0:44)
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- Music Influences (2:53)
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- Tribute To Wes Robinson (1:21)
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- Rock Stars Part 1 (7:22)
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- Rock Stars Part 2 (7:59)
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- Brian and Harald Photo Memories (11:29)
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- Metal Memorabilia (10:21)
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- Phil Demmel Year Book (1:29)
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- Metal Director (11:04)
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- Gary Holt On Cliff (0:48)
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- Baloff Logo (1:16)
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- Exodus Early Years (1:36)
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- Tom Araya ‘Day In The Dirt’ (0:40)
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- What European People Do (0:20)
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- First Public Screening by Lil Mike SF (17:15)
Final Thoughts
Murder In The Front Row: The San Francisco Bay Area Thrash Metal Story is a really enjoyable documentary that clearly lays out the major pieces of what made this music scene such a formidable experience for so many. Director Adam Dubin does an excellent job of featuring interviews from both the major names that even newcomers would probably know along with less mainstream names that are important to the history. While more dedicated fans may be able to point out angles that could have been fleshed out more, this documentary provides a pretty entertaining overview that plays well for fans of the genre and interested newcomers alike. MVD Entertainment has released a Blu-Ray featuring a strong A/V presentation and a nice selection of additional footage. If you are a music documentary fan, don’t skip this one. Recommended
Murder In The Front Row: The San Francisco Bay Area Thrash Metal Story is currently available to purchase on Blu-Ray and Digital.
Note: Images presented in this review are not reflective of the image quality of the Blu-Ray.
Disclaimer: MVD Entertainment has supplied a copy of this disc free of charge for review purposes. All opinions in this review are the honest reactions of the author.
Dillon is most comfortable sitting around in a theatre all day watching both big budget and independent movies.