Nazareth: No Means of Escape Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		3.0
Overall		3.5

Nazareth: No Means of Escape Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman October 19, 2015

There’s a probably unintentional irony to Nazareth: No Means of Escape, an interesting combination of a concert video (Live at Metropolis) and a career retrospective documentary (Made in Scotland). Both pieces were made (or at least conceived) in the wake of the retirement of longtime lead singer Dan McCafferty. The concert video was obviously meant to highlight new lead singer Linton Osborne, and the documentary spends a great deal of time interviewing McCafferty about his (health related) retirement and the band’s search for a new frontman. Unfortunately, as diehard Nazareth fans are no doubt well aware, Osborne abruptly left the band under somewhat mysterious if ultimately amicable circumstances, leaving the concert a historical curio and the documentary left to deal with Osborne’s “fate” in a brief interstitial at the very end of the piece.

My hunch is a lot fans who have followed Nazareth for decades will probably find Osborne's voice acceptable if underwhelming at times, but he's reasonably engaging and the rest of the band plays with a lot of energy and excitement. The documentary provides some great information and interviews, even if a few of the talking heads go a bit overboard in their assessment of the band's impact on modern rock. The concert set list is:

Silver Dollar Forger
Sleeptalker
Rock 'n' Roll Telephone
Razamanaz
May the Sun Shine
See You See Me
Turn On Your Receiver
Bad Bad Boy
One Set of Bones
This Flight Tonight
Hair of the Dog
Love Hurts
Expect No Mercy

Nazareth: No Means of Escape Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Nazareth: No Means of Escape is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Universal Music Group and Eagle Vision, an imprint of Eagle Rock Entertainment, with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1 (for both of the main features on this disc). The concert video suffers occasionally from washes of blue and purple lighting, which come awfully close to posterizing at times. Detail is minimally mitigated during some of these lighting schemes, especially in midrange and wide shots. The documentary offers more detail, generally speaking, with the contemporary interview segments looking sharp and precise.

Nazareth: No Means of Escape Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Nazareth: No Means of Escape features DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 and LPCM 2.0 mixes for both of the main features on this Blu-ray. The concert video understandably benefits more consistently from the surround treatment than the documentary does, though to be fair, the documentary offers large swaths of the concert as well. Midrange and the lower end are both nicely full sounding, but Osborne's plaintive tenor typically soars above the fray with good prioritization. All of the talking head segments in the documentary sound fine, with no problems whatsoever.

Nazareth: No Means of Escape Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Depending on what you consider a "supplement", this disc offers the following elements:

• Live at Metropolis (1080p; 1:00:29)


• Made in Scotland (1080p; 52:09)

The actual listed Bonus Features include:

• Acoustic Session - Sunshine (1080p; 3:36)

While listed as separate entries in the Bonus Features menu, the following three featurettes are authored together in 1080p at 57:28 (with the second two featurettes simply starting later within the 57:28 block):

Pete Agnew Interview

Dan McCafferty Interview

Meet the Superfans

Nazareth: No Means of Escape Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Nazareth is one of those bands that seems like it's been around forever, but which tends not to get the appreciation it's probably due. It's a little sad that this release is so unavoidably tied to the retirement of McCafferty and the search for his "replacement", a segue that for whatever reason didn't work out. Nazareth: No Means of Escape is therefore a bit more of a curiosity than a "career statement", but for Nazareth fans, that's probably enough. Recommended.