First of a two-part Australian Metallica EP extravaganza! And check out KamerTunesBlog for an awesome Metallica discography series!
METALLICA – Six Feet Down Under EP (2010 Universal)
This Metallica EP for Australia only, Six Feet Down Under, will be of limited interest to casual fans. The EP (the first of two for Australia) is a decent tour souvenir for those fans, but for fans in Canada or elsewhere who will have to pay much higher prices, this is mostly just a collectible. The sound quality varies wildly. The tracks were selected as songs that were not often (or ever) released as live B-sides before.
The oldest tunes from ’89 (“Justice” and “Beholder”) are from audience bootleg sources, and are very rough. I have heard much better bootlegs. The idea was to give fans rare tracks recorded in Australia, so this really is something geared towards collectors. I’s hard to critique the tunes beyond sound quality, because it’s not like you can really discern bass parts or cymbals and so on.
The ’93 tunes are “Through The Never” (extremely sloppy, especially on the rhythm guitar) and “The Unforgiven”. These songs sound a lot better. “The Unforgiven” in particular is a very nice version. Metallica had started recording their shows via soundboard by now.
Then we jump ahead to the ReLoad tour. Personally, I really liked Load, but I wasn’t very hot on ReLoad. I was still excited to hear live versions of “Low Man’s Lyric” and “Devil’s Dance”, but quite frankly, they sound uninspired.
From 2004 we have a really cool live version of “Frantic”, one of the best tunes from St. Anger. Whether you like it or not will depend on how you feel about St. Anger. I liked this version. Wisely, Metallica decided to include only one St. Anger tune. The other tune from 2004 is “Fight Fire With Fire” which is, once again, very sloppy. But hey, at least you know it’s live.
There are liner notes included as per most Metallica singles and EPs. This just explains the purpose of the EP and the sources of each track. Sounds like something you’d be into? Then go for it. If you’re not intrigued, don’t plop down the big bucks if you’re buying it on import. I will say that Metallica aren’t ripping the fans off; this “EP” is 52 minutes long. By way of comparison, Diver Down by Van Halen is 28 minutes.
3/5 stars
Come back tomorrow for a look at Six Feet Down Under Part II.
mikeladano.com 
So almost two Diver Downs ?
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Bingo!
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Diver Diver Down
Diver Down Down
Diver Down Diver Down
Hm…
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Never seen this one before! It all sounds a bit hit and miss but definitely some collectable tunes on there.
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It’s for the fans, I don’t think Metallica really intend these EPs to be mass-marketed. I don’t think they need to care about that!
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No probably not. It’s cool that they put this stuff out there for the hardcore fans and they have so much live stuff available from their site too.
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Metallica have always been geared (release-wise) to the hardcore fans. Look at your 5 1/2 year anniversary box set as evidence. I wish I bought it.
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Yes, that’s one of the best purchases I’ve made this year. I’m glad I bought that one!
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I don’t mean to overstate it, but…that’s THE best purchase you’ve made this year, and quite possibly the best purchase you’re ever likely to make!
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Haha hopefully not but… you might have a point.
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Not to make it sound like the rest of your life will be without meaning and hope…but dude…what could top that? I’ve seen one copy my whole life and I’m older than you! (I think)
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I think I’ve seen 3 over the years. But it was a European release I think so I’m in the right place! It’s all downhill from here! Hahaha
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I’ve always said, if I wanted to do some serious music buying anywhere in the world, I’d go to Japan. But I’d be able to stop in the UK on the way, right? :)
And you KNOW to email me next time you see one of those. Hey do you have a Whitesnake record to mail me?
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Yes I do! And a Porcupine Tree CD for you as well. I’m off work next week so I’ll try and get you and Aaron’s stuff posted out. It takes a lot to get me in a Post Office unfortunately! It’s been here about 9 months haha
I’ll keep an eye out
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9 months, time to send that baby to me! Canada Post still uses canoes, unfortunately, even over land which would explain how I could possibly get a parcel from Japan faster than a parcel from Quebec.
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Haha canoes don’t go so well over land I suppose.
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No, they don’t. It’s called portage.
Have you seen Fitzcaraldo? I suspect that it was actually filmed in Canada on a Canada Post Jumbo-Canoe. Not in South America as Herzog has led us to believe all these years. Just a theory.
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I love that film! Those canoe posties really love their Opera don’t they?
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Ahh yes, but none more than Caruso.
Hey let’s go off topic for a moment. My DVD is in English, but you can switch to German. Which is the original/correct?
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I looked into this before. It was filmed mostly in English because it was the language most the actors shared but apparently Herzog prefers the German dub as Kinski’s voice is better! I seem to remember there being points where the English seemed dubbed too. I think the cast was so international there was a few different languages going about. I had this problem with Aguirre too.
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I know with location shooting, sometimes you are sometimes lucky to get any usable audio at all, because of all the ambient noise. So you can sometimes see, especially in older films, scenes that are obviously dubbed because the voices sound cleaner etc. So that would explain why the English has moments like that.
But thanks for the info. I’ve watched both, and I did enjoy the English more, truthfully, but it’s so great (and so is Kinski) that I would watch either,
Have you seen Herzog’s Gizzly Man? Just watched it for the 143754th time last week.
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Yes love that too. And Richard Thompson’s soundtrack is fantastic.
I think you’re right about the audio. They probably just spoke whatever way they felt most natural and then dubbed it later. Like with the Spaghetti Westerns and whatnot. I watched both and I feel the same.
I’ve got tons of Herzog movies that I haven’t watched yet. Need to catch up! Watched Stroczek a while back and that was great.
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I’ll review Grizzly Man. It has a loose musical connection (a soundtrack worth talking about) so I’ll consider this a request even if it wasn’t :)
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I think the ’93 tunes are the way to go – good sound recording quality, imperfect performances to prove it’s the real thing!
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I do like an imperfect performance. Certainly prefer that to a fixed up note-perfect sterile recording.
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52 minutes is not an EP, it’s an album! I remember when I came out, and the collector in me got otchy and wanted to buy them… and then I remembered I’m not too likely to play live Metallica that often and the price was higher (weren’t they about $17 each?) so I sat down until the feeling went away. And now I read your comments and learn that it’s not even good sound quality? C’mon Metallica. At this late stage? Really? Bootlegs are one thing, but an official release? No way. You can’t tell me they don’t have soundboard recordings.
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It’s possible that soundboard recordings were lost/misplaced if made. Who knows.
Tomorrow’s CD has much better sound quality.
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