Search - Spandau Ballet :: Reformation

Reformation Domination!

glen | 06/19/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Immaculate remastering makes this release shine like a new car. The now old songs sound new and fresh, rattling my speakers with 80's white jive. Reformation 3 CD set is the best anthology I have every bought! Great pictures and short story is included to give you a better sense of the outpouring of creativity surrounding the band. Great demos, extended versions and a complete live show captures these new romantics at their peak! One minor con (very minor) is the remastering is almost too good. Though I would not want to listen to their demos or live show any other way, the glossy cleaning makes one lose the actual sound of the live show and probably misrepresent how the demos sounded at the time. But I am complaining about awesome fidelity? No. No complaints about Reformation, the best anthology I have ever bought."

A great collection but compressed mastering

J. Donato | 12/28/2008

(4 out of 5 stars)

"If you had to distill Spandau Ballet down to 3 CDs, the compilers of this box did a fantastic job. I was especially happy to see the "Musclebound" b-side "Glow" appear in both long and short versions. It was the first track of their dramatic transition to latin funk that was shocking at the time. Disc 2 is the soundtrack to their great home video "Live Over Britain" and was what really made me a fan, even after hearing their first two albums and not being convinced. This compilation shows the full breadth of the band's releases on Chrysalis stylistically beginning with the stiff sounding New Romantic era, through the latin funk 2nd album era, and culminating in the blue eyed soul of "True" and "Parade," which saw them selling records like hotcakes. It holds a diverse blend of LP cuts, singles, remixes, live tracks and a few unreleased rarities in good balance and proportion.



Too bad the same balance and proportion wasn't applied to the audio remastering! This is a harshly compressed release that has a very limited dynamic range in order to achieve extreme loudness! It is super brickwalled and I ended up remastering many of these cuts from my vinyl in order to have something I can listen to without fatigue or deafness. If you own the earlier 12" Single Collection, don't get rid of it if you value music's dynamic range! The same cuts repeated here sound ghastly. That's why my review gets docked a star. Hardcore fidelity purists would probably dock it 2 stars, truth be told."