Album Reviews

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Album Reviews
Triple LP Edition of Krauss' Live Set Offers Spectacular Sound
Michael Fremer  |  Feb 01, 2007

Krauss and company’s tuneful, crossover bluegrass-pop may not be pure enough for the dogmatic, but for the rest of us, the smooth-to-the-touch instrumentals and lilting, lockstep harmonies bring mountain-sense and countrified order to a chaotic world however far into the pop arena the group occasionally strays.

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Album Reviews
TRON Soundtrack Released on Double 180g Vinyl
Michael Fremer  |  Aug 07, 2014
Yes, it's a horrendous conflict of interest, I suppose, for me to be reviewing this double LP TRON soundtrack reissue since I originally supervised it back in 1982, but I was there, so who better qualified to do it?

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Album Reviews
Tuneful Outing By Crossover Indie Band
Michael Fremer  |  Aug 01, 2007

If you’re not familiar with Modest Mouse’s brand of jumpy/shouty, guitar driven music, if you’re a fan of XTC or The Talking Heads, you actually are.

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Album Reviews
Turns Your Turntable Into a Ticki-Bar!
Michael Fremer  |  May 01, 2010

While two of the three previous jazz records guitarist/arranger Anthony Wilson made with producer Joe Harley were guitar/drum/organ sessions, this one also featuring those instruments is much different.

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Album Reviews
Turntable Manufacturer Puts Money Where Stylus Fits
Michael Fremer  |  Jun 01, 2006

Clearaudio couldn't have gone into the record business to provide software support for its line of turntables. There’s no shortage of new vinyl in 2006. Perhaps the album’s producer is a friend.

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Album Reviews
Two Albums In One Package From Long Running Rev
Michael Fremer  |  Apr 01, 2009

The long running outfit known as Mercury Rev (first album, Yerself Is Steam issued 1991 on the UK Mint Films label and 1992 on U.S. Columbia) didn’t take its name from the liquid element. The first album’s back jacket offers a clue: with or without permission, it reproduces the ‘Stereo 35MM’ logo found on cloth-spined Command Classics LPs and that’s fine with me. “Fine”&#151get it? Fine? It even reproduces the part of the logo that says the recording was on 35MM magnetic tape, but I doubt that album really was. (Hint: those Commands were recorded by the legendary Mercury Records engineer (and mastered by George Piros for that matter).

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Album Reviews
Two Classic Frank Zappa Electric Orchestra Jazz Fusion LPs, Waka/Jawaka and The Grand Wazoo, Are Revived and Rejuvenated Anew Via a Perfect Pair of AAA Grundman-Remastered 180g LPs
Mark Smotroff  |  Jan 06, 2023

Never one to sit idle, even after a debilitating physical injury he sustained in late 1971, Frank Zappa pushed onward to make some of the most creative music of his entire career. The resultant two albums — July 1972’s Waka/Jawaka (official Zappa album No. 15) and November 1972’s The Grand Wazoo (official Zappa album No. 16) — are two sides of a coin now duly feted in a pair of new, 50th anniversary 180g 1LP editions sporting all-analog mastering by Bernie Grundman. Read Mark Smotroff’s review to find out why you need to get your hands, and ears, on both LPs. . .

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Album Reviews
Two Guitar Greats Dance Around a Latin Beat
Michael Fremer  |  Oct 01, 2005

The Concord catalog is filled with great sounding recordings made by top tier artists in the later phases of their careers. There's nothing wrong with that. It's to label founder and producer Carl E. Jefferson's credit that he had a jazz label vision and saw it through at a time when jazz was on the decline commercially.

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Album Reviews
Two Late-Period Grateful Dead LPs, 1977’s Terrapin Station and 1987’s In The Dark, Respectively Receive Much Improved Remastered and Plangent-Restored 1LP Reissues From Rhino
Mark Smotroff  |  Mar 08, 2024

Plangent Processes is again at the center of a pair of new Grateful Dead reissues that were released by Rhino back in January: a) July 1977’s Top 30 hit LP Terrapin Station and July 1987’s Top 10 smash In the Dark — and now we’re finally getting around to reviewing them here together. Read Mark Smotroff’s review to see if either or both of these new LP editions of Terrapin Station and In the Dark — supervised and produced by noted Dead archivist David Lemieux, and mastered for vinyl by David Glasser — belong in your collection. . .

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Album Reviews
Two Sought After 70's Albums Surface In Box Set
Michael Fremer  |  Sep 01, 2010

Chris Darrow may not be a name familiar to you, nor might Kaleidoscope, the ‘60s psych/folk band on Epic of which he was part. That band passed me by back then. Maybe I didn’t like the cover art, or thought Epic wasn’t in the same solid A&R league as was Elektra for instance, so I didn’t want to chance it. I never heard them on the radio and Epic probably did a crappy job promoting them.

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Album Reviews
UK Band Snags Long-Gone Sound
Michael Fremer  |  Sep 01, 2007

The Clientele’s Alasdair Maclean has been seduced by the precious 60’s west coast soft pop of Curt Boettcher, The Association, Brian Wilson, Boyce-Hart, Papa John Philips and even Arthur Lee, though like his fellow seductee Sean O’Hagan of High Llamas, he hails from the UK.

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Album Reviews
UMe's Birth of the Cool Is A Sonic Abortion And a Reissue Disgrace
Michael Fremer  |  Jul 02, 2019
First off, UMe touts this reissue as "...newly remastered from the original 1949 analog tapes for the first time since 1957." That's nonsense: Bernie Grundman cut this from the original analog tapes for Classic Records back in the 2000s. And I believe the RVG CD did as well (correct me if I'm wrong). Facts matter.

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Album Reviews
UMe’s New 1LP Reissue of Steely Dan’s Seminal Hit 1977 Album Aja Indeed Has Merit for Those Seeking a New, Clean-Sounding Vinyl Edition Without Breaking the Bank
Mark Smotroff  |  Oct 11, 2023

The new Geffen/UMe 1LP edition of Steely Dan’s seminal September 1977 album, Aja, sounds pretty darn good, all things considered, given that it bears a key difference from the other entries in this reissue series to date. Read Mark Smotroff’s review to see what that difference is, and if this new edition of Aja is right for you either way. . .

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Album Reviews
Unfairly Overlooked Clarinetist Gets His Due on Double Vinyl
Michael Fremer  |  Aug 01, 2005

“Jazz” and “clarinet” usually equals Dixieland in the minds of many jazz fans, which may explain, in part, why jazz clarinetist Jimmy Guiffre, a most imaginative, and free-spirited musician failed to achieve the acclaim he deserved-not that there's anything wrong with Dixieland.

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AAA VinylAlbum Reviews
Unreleased Blue Note Title Just Coolin'  In the Can For 60 Years Finally Surfaces
Michael Fremer  |  Jul 28, 2020
This previously unreleased March 9th 1959 session recorded at Rudy Van Gelder’s Hackensack home studio is a “must have” for Blue Note “completists”, especially for those with an affinity for car and plane crash videos. If you are just getting into the rich Blue Note catalog, your money is best spent elsewhere as this session, despite the stellar group, often sounds listless and forced. Grooves get glossed over in favor of speed.

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