Thursday 29 August 2013

Absolution

Reissues and repressings are pretty common these days. From Revelation repressing a lot of their catalogue on new colours of vinyl to Bridge Nine reissuing some of their releases from ten years ago in new packaging with extra songs, I have very different opinions on these things. My opinions don't even make sense really as there is no consistency. I mean, sometimes I'll buy a modern day repress of a record I already have just because it's on a different colour, such as the recent colour Rev stuff. But sometimes I won't, e.g. Victory Records repressings. Even though I love the first Strife LP, I'm happy enough with my original colour copies and I don't need another. Similarly, sometimes I like discography packages, such as the Turning Point discography that Think Fast! put out, but other times I have no interest in such things and am happy with my original records. For example, I have zero interest in owning the Underdog or Resurrection discographies, even though I have loved both bands for years. Generally there is no real pattern to it. Sometimes I'm interested, other times I am not. I can't really explain it.

So without being able to explain why I do or do not want these things, I can tell you that for some inexplicable reason I definitely WAS interested in picking up the Absolution 7" reissue. And to keep things interesting, there were two coloured vinyl pressings, so obviously I had to grab both. Firstlyis gold, the most limited colour out of only 60 copies.

And second, here's the clear purple vinyl out of 150 copies. It's one of those purples that looks black unless you hold it to the light.

I think that what makes this interesting is that this isn't just a reissue. The band actually went back into the studio in 2012 and re-recorded the four songs that made up the original 7". And believe me, it sounds WAY better. Also, as you can see, they recreated the original artwork for the record cover and the labels. Aside from switching the old Combined records logo for the new Lush Life logo, it looks exactly the same. So a reissue on a new label with nice looking colour vinyl and re-recorded, better quality songs. Is there anyone who WOULDN'T want this?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I understand your point regarding discographies -I generally feel the same way for most of them-, but in the case of Ressurection you should reconsider. The songs were remastered (by Kurt Balloo), and it sheds a totally different light on them. There are many things that are lost in the original mixes, like the bass, some guitar gimmicks, etc. It sounds waaay better, without sounding modern or anything (which was my concern before hearing it). I enjoy those songs much more now, in the end it sounds like Ressurection, but the way it was supposed to.