Heavy Metal Never Dies - Live in Tokyo 2021

Heavy Metal Never Dies - Live in Tokyo 2021 documents a show at Tokyo Dome City Hall. It was released on 29 September 2021 on Blu-ray, DVD and 2CD; the CD edition runs to nineteen songs across two discs, close to an hour and fifty-seven minutes. The opening track is called "Ride For Vengeance (Intro)", which tells you what this night was: the end point of the RIDE FOR VENGEANCE TOUR, postponed and postponed again. "When Destinies Align", "The Crusade" and "Golden Destination" follow, and one of the pleasures of the record is hearing "Spellbound" — a song that exists only on a single — played live. The most recent record at the time, the mini-album Glory, Glory, to the World, gives "Glory To The World", and the non-album single "Winds Of Transylvania" is here too. "The Apocalypse" comes from the debut EP, "Don't Bite The Dust" from Awakening from Abyss, "Under The Red Sky" from Battle Against Damnation: a set built by moving back and forth through the catalogue rather than along it. "Swan Song" on the second disc runs past eleven minutes. The running time is itself an argument about how dense this band had become by then.