Er, how to critique this? The performances just sound so… impassioned. The opposite of what Comus should be. They are almost the exact same as their studio counterparts, just in worse quality. “Diana” is just too abrasive here and not very listenable. There’s a little bit of improvising in the middle of the songs but they don’t go anywhere new and it’s amateurish at best. In fact, the band sound a little rusty.

There’s a cover of The Velvet Underground’s “Venus in Furs” here. It’s actually a good cover, and Comus do what any good cover should do and manage to adapt the song to their own style. The album closes with “Song to Comus,” which is already performed earlier in the concert. It’s the same thing. I realize the band didn’t have that much material, but “The Bite” from First Utterance isn’t on here, and those three non-album tracks done outside of First Utterance would have made great choices to play live too. Hell, even something off of the underrated To Keep From Crying would have been better. As it stands, this is like listening to First Utterance in worse quality with a different track order.

I love Comus, really. I’m glad they got back together and was satisfied by Out of the Coma. But this is not a good live concert. The performances are just satisfactory if lacking energy all around, and the recording quality isn’t impressive either. I would have preferred an official bootleg of one of their ’70s concerts, surely there must be something out there in better quality than “The Malgaard Suite.”

This isn’t even something strictly for the fans; just stick to their studio material. Give To Keep From Crying or Out of the Coma another chance instead of listening to this.