Record Rack: A round-up of the week’s new albums, expanded reissues and/or box sets, appearing each Monday on Slicing Up Eyeballs.
Ministry
RELEASE: Enjoy the Quiet: Live at Wacken 2012
BACKSTORY: Al Jourgensen this week releases, in the U.K., a new 11-track live album recorded last year at the Wacken Open Air Festival in Germany. The set is out later this month in the U.S., and a DVD/Blu-ray is coming, too, later in August in both the U.S. and U.K.
BUY: Amazon.co.uk
Echo & The Bunnymen
RELEASE: Crocodiles
BACKSTORY: The 1980 debut from Ian McCulloch and Co. is reissued this week, in the U.K., on orange vinyl in a new 180-gram audiophile pressing. It’s just the straight album, though, and to to be confused with the 2LP “hardback book” version that features 10 bonus tracks and is now due in September.
BUY: Amazon.co.uk
Talking Heads
RELEASE: Fear of Music
BACKSTORY: Rhino Records this week reissues the Talking Heads third album on vinyl, a collection produced by the band and electronic music legend Brian Eno that was originally released in 1979 and featured the singles “Life During Wartime,” “I Zimbra” and “Cities.”
BUY: Amazon.com
Hands down my favorite Talking Heads album. Rhino has done a great job with the previous vinyl reissues, they can go ahead and take my money.
1972 Records has released the previous Echo vinyl and did an outstanding job as well. Nice, clean, quiet vinyl that definitely feels 180G. This is gonna’ be a great new release week.
Rhino destroyed the Dinosaur Jr. reissues, there were pops and crackles down the line. I even compared one LP with my cousin’s LP and it happened in the exact same spots. I returned both copies and received a credit in their online store. Then I got the Cure’s Disintegration reissue on LP, after many delays in production it finally arrived and the artwork was atrocious. Cheaply done. I will never purchase a low quality product from them again, although, I hope that they have corrected some of the flaws. I really wanted Psalm 69 from Ministry but did not want to take the chance.
I agree that Rhino is hit or miss. I also agree completely on the Dinosaur Jr. stuff, I bought one and sold it almost immediately. Strangley, the Disintegration 180G version was terrible as you said but the 150G version was actually pretty good. So far, they have not screwed up Talking Heads in my opinion but the difference might be Chris Frantz. He is heavily involved in their merchandise releases, he even agonizes over their T-shirts, so he may have been very hands-on with the vinyl reissues.
Psalm 69 is not bad from what I have heard. A friend has it and says the vinyl is clean and quiet. I cannot confirm that first hand though.
Psalm 69 is indeed nice, and can be had for under 20 bucks