Turbonegro : The Movie

This rockumentary was initially released shortly after the band's 1998 demise. As time, it seems, is on Turbonegro's side, it was relaunched on DVD upon the advent of comeback album Scandinavian Leather. The movie is a mixture of on-the-road rowdyism caught on tape, excerpts from various European television appearances, interviews, and live performances. This band is about much more than just the music: it's a package -- like other great image-heavy acts such as Kiss and Alice Cooper. For that reason it is a great treat that the better part of the footage dates back to the Apocalypse Dudes-era, as you get to see Turbonegro incarnated as the denim-clad sailor men they're known and loved as. You get a pretty good idea of how they sounded live before they disbanded, and that ought to be interesting enough for all the fans who discovered them only after the 2002 reformation. You learn that they sounded pretty much the same, with one notable exception: singer Hank von Helvete's performance is marred by his use of heroin, and often sounds weak. Notwithstanding, this is both a brief history of Turbonegro, a collection of their pre-split promo videos and a solid documentation of how they sounded and acted at their creative peak thus far: 1998's Apocalypse Dudes. ~ Anders Kaasen|