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Has any female ever represented the real nature and fabric of heavy metal better than Doro Pesch?

As this double-DVD-augmented three-disc release proves, she’s been uncompromisingly flying the flag for a quarter of a century, and clearly still loves it.

The key element in this package is the three-hour show the blonde beauty did back in her home town of Dusseldorf in 2008, celebrating her 25-year career. She’s joined by members of the Scorpions, Girlschool and also Tarja Turunen (among others) for a brilliant display of teutonic metal fireworks.

The second half is more of a look back at what she’s achieved, mostly against all the odds. In a way, the title is misleading. It should have been 25 Years Immersed In Metal. Because, as she shows here, Doro is the metal queen.

Malcolm Dome had an illustrious and celebrated career which stretched back to working for Record Mirror magazine in the late 70s and Metal Fury in the early 80s before joining Kerrang! at its launch in 1981. His first book, Encyclopedia Metallica, published in 1981, may have been the inspiration for the name of a certain band formed that same year. Dome is also credited with inventing the term "thrash metal" while writing about the Anthrax song Metal Thrashing Mad in 1984. With the launch of Classic Rock magazine in 1998 he became involved with that title, sister magazine Metal Hammer, and was a contributor to Prog magazine since its inception in 2009. He died in 2021.