Altar Boys - Gut Level Music reissue

Well lookie here. The Altar Boys and the folks at Girder Records put this announcement out yesterday. GLM is being reissued and remastered.

http://girderrecords.com/girder-records-to-re-release-altar-boys-gut-level-music/

It's going to be released Spring 2015 with remastering and stuff going on now. Reports from a guy on Facebook who has heard some of the new remaster reports it has a "fuller sound" which is good because IMO the original recording lacked low end.

bjorn agin wrote:It's going to be released Spring 2015 with remastering and stuff going on now. Reports from a guy on Facebook who has heard some of the new remaster reports it has a "fuller sound" which is good because IMO the original recording lacked low end.

That would be interesting. Besides the low end, I always wished that the guitars were not syrupy chorus toned. A nice crunch tone would be my preference. Again, who am I to tell someone how do make his art? But, I wonder if it really was Mike who wanted it like that or a nervous producer saying that it can't sound too hard or the disk will be banned at the book store.

This is a great announcement.

AWESOME!!!

Release date is now 31st March 2015!!!

http://girdermusic.com/musicshop/

Mike Stand & Co. have been putting together a bunch of old videos etc. for the re-release of GLM. They've started an official Altar Boys YouTube channel.  He's also just posted part 1 on the history of the band. Rather cool.



In the video there is mentions of old bands like The Lifters, Chosen Few and Lifesavers. I think I've heard some of The Lifters courtesy of someone posting a link here. Lifesavers I just learned the other day had a pre-Mike Knott era which piques my interest (I've never been much of a fan of Lifesavers/LS Underground/LSU et al). And Chosen Few, don't know anything about them. Anybody know what they sound like?

Part 2 of the video series just came out. Cool!

I used to listen to this album a lot back in the 80's.  I'll probably end up getting this, even if only for the nostalgia of it.

Pre-ordered!

I got the e-mail earlier today telling me my pre-order had been shipped!

Mike Stand is the next featured artist on the Front line Rewind Podcast. I'm sure they will be playing the tunes so check it out!

This arrived in my mailbox today and I just spun it for the first time.  My first impressions:

Packaging - I opened the envelope and found a paperboard tri-fold package, which threw me off a little as I was kind of expecting a jewel case. This sort of packaging seems to be increasingly common lately with different bands however. The layout of the graphics is good.  No lyrics are included. The only glitch I noticed was some white text layered on top of a black and white photo on the back cover. I'm not sure if I'm a fan of the re-styled front cover, but it's not as bad as the new artwork on the Intense Millennium releases.

The remaster - Most times I can't tell the difference between an original and a remaster. That's not the case here. I went back to the original track of GLM for reference. Everything is louder. and I would say more full sounding. I'm happy, as anybody who has read this forum for any length of time has heard me say on more than one occasion that I was disappointed with the lack of low end of the original. That seems to have been remedied with the remaster. I'm going to have to listen more at excessive volume to see how it sounds to my ears.

The new song (I just cant let go) - It's not bad. I'm not sure it quite gels with the rest of the album stylistically. But all and all not too shabby.

bjorn agin wrote:...The new song (I just cant let go) - It's not bad. I'm not sure it quite gels with the rest of the album stylistically. But all and all not too shabby.

I concur.  I would add it seems...unrefined.  But I dig it.