BES

 

eliminates the old problems and
delivers the sonic headroom that the
performance demands.

The studio albums, Are You Experi-
enced?, Axis: Bold as Love and
Electric Ladyland, are a different
matter. Although these albums have
never enjoyed the full re-mastering
treatment that lesser works like Rush’s
or Pink Floyd’s catalogue have
received, and other than better
packaging and production notes, these
re-issues are difficult to measure
against the first series of issues. The
sound on the MCA re-mastering series
is marginally less full than on these
albums, but one would need to have
access to a multi-thousand dollar
sound system to assert any clear
superiority of these current re-
masterings over their predecessors.
The only vastly improved feature on
the first three studio albums is their
packaging: the original album art has
been restored. This may seem like a

bit of Phish and Grateful Dead tossed

in for good measure. Acoustic folk
ick;with some tasteful fretless bass

assist Mike Chang.

ggs aren’t carving any new

h Songs We Wrote. In fact,

places where the songs they

nd suspiciously like songs

ple have written. Can’t help

into a few lines of ‘If | had a

llars’ on ‘Convictions,’ or

and’ on ‘Tunnel Vision.’ Then

n't picture Michael Stipe

u suck/ What’s wrong with

broke into my house you

y CDs/ You suck/ Did you

's finished with those?/ You

isn't going to listen to those

/ You idiot/ What’s wrong

You suck.

song, ‘David’s Lament,’ is a

oddball rap that stands in

to the rest of the acoustic

en album, and is perhaps the

der that the masterminds

his album are still young, and

ke themselves too seriously.

t, more than anything else, is

this album apart: it’s fun. So

ou can sometimes hear other

choed in the chord

ns or vocal lines? The

ke these elements and make

own, and by doing so have

an.album that is surprisingly

spite of, or perhaps because

vil-may-care attitude exhib-

trivial thing, but to anyone who has
ever browsed or purchased from the

  
 
 
 
  
  
  
   
 
  
   
   
 
 
 
  
 
 
  
  
  
 

Cavect E

Trent

CeeDees 33h