2007 was a busy year for Danish rock’n’metal wonders Volbeat. A brilliant new album out and massive touring, including Wacken, With Full Force, Summer Breeze and a support gig for Metallica in Aarhus, Denmark. Not bad, eh!?

And now the moment when the natural urge to present the year to all of us on a DVD has arisen. As you can see from my rating, that’s both good and bad.

The first part of the release consists of live recordings from seven different sites in Germany and Denmark.

This DVD disc is where you really get your money’s worth if you go out and buy the release (and I don’t just say this because you get a few glimpses of yours truly in With Full Force crowd!).

The recordings sum up how mighty a force Volbeat have become and just how cool and entertaining they are on stage. Excellent sound, excellent performances, excellent songs.

19 songs are shown, and it’s a joy to behold. On top of that, the five official promotional videos from the band have been included, just to make sure that you have those in something other than internet quality.

Good stuff!

Now, that is great. What is not so great is the second disc included in the 'Live: Sold Out' release.

The idea of a documentary is lovely, but this one is just too slow-paced. Clocking up way to close to two hours, what we get here is a semi-relevant blah-blah from well-nigh everyone involved in the Volbeat entourage! Needless to say, this is total overkill.

As amicable and thoughtful the band, their crew, their merchandiser, their tour manager, their label boss and their fans are, much of what is said here could have been summed up in less time, and preferably by a narrator who could actually speak something other than a Danish-German-English hybrid.

At the end of this long haul, Michael Poulsen promises us that the band will be back with massive touring in 2008, and that is cool, but please remember, Michael:

Less talk, more new phenomenal Volbeat music! That's what you do best!