After Daybreak: What A Wonderful World (2010/UQCD Gold CD/Intermusic/Top Music)/The Raconteurs: Live At Montreux 2008 (Eagle Blu-ray)/Return To Forever: The Mothership Returns (2012/Eagle DVD/2-CD Set)

 

Picture: X/B-/C+     Sound: B/B-/B- & B     Extras: D/C-/B-     Music Programs: C/B-/B-

 

 

PLEASE NOTE: The After Daybreak Gold Compact Disc is only available from our friends at Top Music International, has a Compact Disc layer that will play on virtually all CD players and can be ordered at the link below.

 

 

Now for more recent music releases.

 

 

After Daybreak: What A Wonderful World (2010) has the singing trio tackling 11 songs including standards like the classic of the title, Dan Folgelberg’s Longer, Ennio Morricone’s Nella Fantasia, Over The Rainbow (yes, from Wizard Of Oz) and other songs with nice, smooth vocals, yet I was not overall very impressed with the performances despite the fact that the gentlemen can sing.  This is just too lite, too laid back and even too flat.  I wanted these guys to get fired up, but instead, I just got a bit drowsy.  This might be your kind of music, but if it is not, you’ll want to pass.

 

Jack White may have separated The White Stripes, but he has his solo work and two other bands to play in.  The Raconteurs: Live At Montreux 2008 is a fine, strong performance of a really great Rock Band (one of the few of its kind or its generation) in a 100 minutes performance that I wish was a little longer and had less sound issues, but White, Jack Lawrence, Patrick Keller and co-lead singer Brendan Benson can really deliver and why they are not more famous or successful as a band is a real mystery.  Are they too smart?  Too intense?  Too powerful?  Too intelligent?  Too challenging?  Likely all of those.

 

I had hardly heard any of these songs before and several should have been big singles, but that exclusivity likely is appealing to their fans.  They perform 16 of their songs from their two albums Broken Boy Soldier (2006) and Consolers Of The Lonely (2008, for which they are touring here to support) and this is a great introduction to the band and even White if you have somehow missed his White Stripes hits (or his poor James Bond theme Another Way To Die from Quantum Of Solace, an extremely rare miss for the man), but this is worth going out of your way for despite my minor reservations.  A paper pullout with an essay is the only extra.  Hope they make another album!

 

 

Finally we have Return To Forever: The Mothership Returns (2012), a follow-up to the impressive Blu-ray that also happens to be Live At Montreux 2008 like The Raconteurs effort above, which you can read more about here:

 

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/8561/Return+To+Forever+Returns+%E2%80

 

Wonder if they played the same day?  The same stage?  Stanley Clarke, Lenny White and Chick Corea reunite, but Jean-Luc Ponty and Frank Gambale fill in (more or less) for Al Di Meola in this unusual 2-CD set offering nine songs so long, you’d think they were trying to be a Progressive Rock band like Yes or Emerson, Lake & Palmer.  This is an impressive show, though I wish it had a Blu-ray.  The bonus DVD only has two music performances and adds two documentaries on the band in their current version. But they have talent to spare and that makes this a nice set.  An informative booklet with tech information, illustrations and essays are the other extra.  I recommend this set, but would start with the older Blu-ray release first.

 

 

The 1080i 1.78 X 1 digital High Definition image on Raconteurs is clean and colorful, but has some noise and detail issues typical of such a shoot, yet looks better than the softer anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image on the Forever DVD, which has poorer, softer documentary footage as well.

 

The PCM 2.0 16/44.1 Stereo sound on Daybreak is from the UQCD Gold CD series by Intermusic and does sound as good as anything here.  A well recorded work, I have no complains sonically.  The DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mix on Raconteurs is just a tiny bit towards the front speakers, confirmed by the lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 mix version, which happens to be very compressed and weak.  The PCM 2.0 Stereo version here is also not as good as the DTS, but far better than the Dolby, yet all confirm two things: this is a very loud concert (one of the loudest we have ever encountered on Blu-ray or DVD) and the final mix has a little bit of a distorted edge that holds performance back a bit.

 

The PCM 2.0 16/44.1 Stereo sound on Forever is the other sonic winner here, sounding better than the lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 mix version on the concert footage included on the DVD.

 

 

To find out more about ordering the After Daybreak CD, the direct order link is as follows when it posts on their site:

 

http://www.topmusic.com/to-order.htm

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo