Audioslave-Audioslave (2003) (NTSC)

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General		Extras
Category	Music	Menu Animation & Audio
Rating
Year Of Production	2003
Running Time	28:53
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	1,2,3,4,5,6	Directed By	Mark Romanek Meiert Avis A/V Club Jim Gable
Studio Distributor	Sony Music	Starring	Chris Cornell Tom Morello Brad Wilk Tim Commerford
Case	Amaray-Opaque-Secure Clip
RPI	$19.95	Music	Audioslave

    The term supergroup is thrown around much too lightly these days as a descriptive of some rock bands. In my mind, Audioslave is one of only a few contemporary rock bands to live up to such a compliment, and certainly one of the more unique gems to emerge in the past few years. Originally going by the name Civillian before settling with Audioslave, their debut self-titled CD was released in 2002 to wide critical and commercial acclaim the world over.

    For those that aren't familiar with this fine hard rock outfit, Audioslave came to be through the dissolution of two other legendary bands; the rap/metal hybrid Rage Against The Machine and Seattle grunge pioneers Soundgarden. Searching for a replacement vocalist for Rage Against The Machine, the remaining members had a meeting with former Soundgarden vocalist Chris Cornell and decided to forge an entirely new project. The resulting sound is not as surprising as you would expect, although it certainly is unique. The former Rage Against The Machine musicians just do their thing - pounding out funky, heavy melodies while vocalist Chris Cornell adds his often harsh but beautifully melodic voice - the result is a completely unique blend of the two, steering what was the rap-heavy tunes of Rage Against The Machine into melodic hard rock territory.

    This very short DVD is comprised mainly of promotional material and would make a very good taster of the band's material for the uninitiated, however die-hard fans will most likely find the price tag a bit unreasonable. Still, if you haven't managed to record these clips off rage then this is a good way to have them on disc to keep.

1. Music Video - Cochise (4:05)

2. Music Video - Like A Stone (5:01)

3. Music Video - Show Me How To Live (4:57)

4. Documentary - Audioslave Live in New York (14:48)

Video

    There are a variety of aspect ratios at play here, however the most dominant is 1.33:1, full frame. Track 3 was captured on film and is presented in an aspect of 1.85:1, without 16x9 enhancement. Track 4 varies yet again, with interview footage presented in 1.78:1 and live performances in 1.33:1 full frame. None of the content on this DVD is 16x9 enhanced.

    The level of sharpness is good in places, considering this is an NTSC image. Tracks one and two contain several facial close-ups in which detailed stubble and skin texture can be seen. Black levels appeared surprisingly consistent throughout the program, with reasonable shadow detail. There were no issues with low level noise in this transfer.

    Colours appeared well rendered at all times, from the bright fireworks during Cochise to the intense red desert of track three. The Like A Stone clip has a greenish colour corrected appearance which I believe to be the intention of the director. There are no problems concerning bleeding or oversaturation at all.

    Compression artefacting is nowhere to be seen in this transfer, however there is a little film artefacting to be found during track three but this doesn't extend beyond a few tiny specks of dust here and there. Aliasing is totally absent until tracks three and four, which do suffer considerably at times. Switching my display to progressive scan mode cleared this artefact up a bit, however it was still quite visible on guitar strings and the like.

    There are no subtitles available on this title.

    With a runtime of less than half an hour, it shouldn't surprise you that this disc is DVD5 formatted, that is to say it only contains one layer.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    There is only one audio stream, a stereo PCM track sampled at 48Khz. This audio stream is very good, and of comparable quality to the compact disc release of this music.

    The vocal delivery by Chris Cornell is concise and perfectly enunciated at all times. I noted a few minor problems with the clarity of the dialogue during the interview footage, but these instances were only brief and weren't too distracting. There are no issues with audio sync at all.

    The stereo PCM stream has beautiful depth and dynamic range, particularly in the higher registers affecting cymbals and the like. As with the compact disc versions of these songs there are many examples of left and right panning, making full use of the stereo field.

    There is no surround usage in this case, although the subwoofer did kick in to add some bottom end to the bass guitar and drums.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Menu

    The video transfer is passable for an NTSC effort.

    The audio transfer is a standard stereo PCM track, though it certainly performs better than a compressed stream.

    Extras? They used them all in the half hour feature.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall