Interesting description there. I've honestly never liked anything that Swano (or most people!) remasters but would still like to hear some samples for the sake of it.



Not the most sought after of albums but still not bad! Wonder if they plan on doing any more melodic death/black albums that were only one pressing?

I see where you're going with that train of thought... Cardinal Sin does comes to mind.

CM has been going on with this "death metal campaign" with a lot of reissues and mid-price stuff, together with the new signed bands. I think they're trying to grab a hold of a market that's still hot. With that being said, and as much as I dislike cash grabs, I will have to give CM some money because they also made the Thanatos debut available again.

Oh my poor bank account...

Money making or not, I'm all for reissues of hard to find OOP material. It's the only legitimate way to leave the bootleggers and e-gay scalpers flat on their asses, and make sure the money you spend on buying the stuff will support the artists and labels involved, not some cheap asshole who decided to make a quick buck exploiting your passion for collecting music.

So very true.

I received my copy in the mail on Thursday and I've been spinning it ever since. It sounds great!

Cash grabs? Seems like an unfriendly way of remarking about a label doing their best work to release stuff that people want to buy. Compilations, rehashes, and second-rate material I can see as cash grabs, but this album has gained a huge amount of recognition in the 15 years since it was released and it never saw significant distribution.

I have to agree here. "Remaster" is label-speak for compressing it and raising all the levels in ProTools. It doesn't really help but they think it adds marketing appeal.

This world is run by morons.

I certainly don't see it as a cash grab either. I just bought a great album on vinyl for a fraction of the price I could have bought the original CD for if CM did not do this reissue. As much shit as they do release, this is something that certainly is welcome.

That "CM = cash grab" talk has been going on ever since we had that thread about the Lacuna Coil leaked album and its legal process, yada yada. I've never said that reissuing an album for the first time (case in being point Sacramentum's debut) was such a case, but the talk is so ancient by now that you guys can't expect that I remember everything that was written before.

My point being, at least when quoted, that CM decided to grab a slice of the market to itself when it concerns OSDM revival. Some reissues are cash grabs and others are very welcomed. That's all.

If I recall correctly the Temple of Darkness reissue of Vinterland was kinda elusive from the start, with a lot of weird ambiguity surrounding release dates. Idk, maybe I was just being anxious, lol. But it doesn't surprise me that the distro still lists it as available, in any case. For those interested, discogs has a few relatively reasonably priced copies of it currently. I also agree with those saying "Far Away..." beats "Last Chapter". It certainly suffered due to expectations, but I never fully got into Vinterland in the way I thought I would, whereas Far Away is a top 5 Metal album for me, top 5 anything album really.

I remember when I was first getting into Metal, having a combination of a nagging need to hear all of these super rare essential album and a complete dissatisfaction with non-physical mediums, I had this real anxiety about feeling like I was never gonna hear some of this music. The whole thing seems really funny to me now that I have some perspective. Here's hoping we get reissues of those Obtained Enslavement albums in the future.

Still waiting for the local cd shop to get this in, looked like it was sold out, on another note i got the Re-Release of The Moaning - Blood From Stone, $12 brand new! Been waiting ages to get ahold of this ever since i found out Peter produced it & hearing 1 track on the No Fashion 2cd compilation.

As someone else said, where is the Slaughtersun re-release! Buy it Now for $190+ What the fuck.

yeah, Vinterland isn't top-tier stuff but they're pretty good. Of course, I'd put Dissection on that same level, but I'm probably alone there. Far Away From the Sun is all I really NEED from this style.

Yes, I also noticed that, especially during the blastbeats.

I need to get my hands on this one.

Just a bit sloppy. The whole album has a degree of spontaneity and raw chaos so I don't think of the drumming as a negative issue. One of the best black metal albums of all time.

That's an interesting perspective. I've always thought of the album as being highly technical and meticulously crafted; almost erudite in a way.

^Well, the actual construction of the songs is brilliant and very well thought out with clever use of progress in each riff, and the arrangements are also superb in that each section seems directly related to the proceeding and succeeding sections, but the execution is where I hear a certain primitive urgency. Part of the reason that the album is so good is the way that genuine melody is contrasted with savagery.

To my ears, the drums' sloppiness handicaps the fast parts and spoils the listening experience a bit. I tend to focus on this and forget about the greatness of the melodies and arrangements.

Maybe the drummer tried to be more technical than he could. A more natural and accurate playing would have been better.

^I get you there, but when I first heard the album, almost all the metal I was listening to was similarly executed- think of early Norweigan black metal like Immortal, Burzum, early Mayhem; drumming was often the most random element, with pretty self evident mistakes; at the time, it added to the atmosphere (for me) and Far Away From The Sun did that also. Our 'modern' ears are used to extreme quantisation in metal, so these albums can sound retrospectively bad and mistake-riddled...

Ordered this in the mail a couple of weeks ago. Expecting it any day now.

In my case, playing the drums makes me pay more attention to the drumming mistakes. Some are more blatant to my ears than others, lack of sync for example.

So I got the Far Away From The Sun re-issue and listened through it... Swano strikes again! I don't know whether it's because I'm a fan-boy or because I'm an audiophile, but there were a lot of *subtle* changes.

-Bass levels are way up
-Guitar levels up, effectively leaving the drums and vocals a bit quieter.
-Synth sounds more modern, the ending blew me away
-Everything is a lot more 'crisp'

I can't wait to re-listen to it like 500 more times.

The interview was very interesting to read. I can type it all out on this thread if people are interested enough.

Maybe my audio equipment isn't good enough, but I honestly didn't hear that significant difference. The individual parts certainly are less muddy and clearer at times, a prime example being "Blood Shall Be Spilled". Up until that point though, I listened to the first two songs side-by-side and couldn't really hear any differences. I thought that I would, then I'd realize it was just my imagination.

I think Swano did a very good job with this. I was also worried that the re-master would ruin the magic of the original release, but believe me, it doesn't. And personally, I like being able to actually pick out what I'm hearing, rather than everything blending incomprehensibly together. I'd definitely like to learn some of these songs on bass/guitar, which was quite a feat to tab out prior to this re-master.