Label: Landland Colportage

Produced by: Dave Gardner (remastered by)

Dianogah was already changing their sound a bit on Battle Champions versus their debut, on their way to the Tortoise-smooth bops of Millions of Brazilians. Still, with Steve Albini on board, the low-end rawness of their sound remained intact, just buffered by a compositional style that leaned more into melody over mathy juxtapositions.

For the 2025 Landland Dianogah remasters, Dave Gardner really got to strut his stuff on As Seen From Above, rounding out the sound a lot, but I’m hard-pressed to hear much distinction between the original master of Battle Champions and this one. I’d suspect it’s because of the balancing act in the sound somewhat described above: the album is a push and pull between something that appeals more to Albini’s style and the smoother Thrill Jockey vibes of their followup John McEntire-produced disc; its production / recording somewhat splits the difference. Gardner (to my untrained ear) fluffs up the sound a bit, similarly rounding it out, it’s just less impactful, and its tiny nuance makes it even more subjective as to which songs it “works” on or doesn’t. For example, I think I like the work on the vocal tracks, as Gardner’s mastering is more present and full, and that logically ends the vocals weight. But on the sparser instrumental tracks, Steve’s somewhat flatter mix maintains that earlier edge.

At the same time, if you listen to these back to back without paying much attention, I’m not sure a non-audiophile would be able to say which is which – I’m possibly stretching even with my definitions above.

So the rating… must remain the same as the original album. We get an overall volume bump, and it’s nice that that doesn’t sacrifice fidelity, but while their might be some interesting stuff Gardner could probably point out, my earholes don’t detect enough to merit listening to one recording over the other.