Double dose of southern sludge, live in London 2006! While not as off-the-hook chaotic as some bootlegs of Phil Anselmo’s days of drunken/drugged out rants, the 16 tracks encapsulated here, on two CD (and matching DVD, if so desired), represent the NOLA act’s finest material. That’s not to say he doesn’t scream, curse, nor try to cajole the Brits into going ape shit, but generally, he’s on topic (how much post-production editing was required will forever remain a mystery, unless you were in the crowd). Kicking off with ‘Losing All’, four of the first five selections all come off the stellar debut and that one exclusion is ‘Lysergic Funeral Procession’ opens the second studio disc. In fact, throughout the course of the evening, almost the entire NOLA album is aired, missing just ‘Pillar Of Eternity’, ‘Pray For The Locust’ and ‘Swan Song’. Not all that surprising, given that their third album was still a year from release. As always, Anselmo’s asides are comical, from attempting a Judas Priest reference (it is London, after all), to his promotion of recreational hallucinogens or introducing ‘Bury Me In Smoke’ as a Green Day cover. People falsely perceive Down to be all about glacial movements, but like the best acts in the doom category: Black Sabbath, Trouble, Candlemass, Cathedral, etc. the key is variety, a quantity on display throughout, and sometimes in just one tune. For every pedestrian (verging on lazy jazz lounge call out) ‘Learn From My Mistake’ or meandering ‘Lies (I Don’t Know What They Say But…) there’s a ‘Stone The Crow’ or ‘Losing All’. The (unviewed) DVD promises two hours from that initial European tour, onstage and off, interacting with two decades of underground metal deities.