5 out of 5

Label: Landland Colportage

Produced by: Dave Gardner (remaster)

Y’know, my nitpick about the album feeling a bit scattered overall notwithstanding, the John McEntire recorded / Bob Weston mixed fourth release from Dianogah sounded damn near perfect. The group’s fleshed out sound – more vocals! Guitar! Strings! – and leaning on more post-rock / rock elements than on Millions of Brazilians meant that that duo at the boards provided a great balance between rawness and studio wizardry. With Dave Gardner’s 2025 remasters bringing either different weight or further nuance to the band’s first three releases, what could he do with something already well-weighted and nuanced?

Well, there’s always room to play around, especially if you’re in tune (no pun intended?) with the band’s general m.o., and I think Gardner’s proved that to be the case across these remasters. For Qhnnnl, he remains consistent: favoring a bit more low-end overall, but because Weston had already touched this thing, he doesn’t have to force some of the softer moments as on Brazilians, which blew out the sound a bit too much. Here, I think we take a record that sounded like an amazing studio work, and turn it into something just a bit punchier – a bit more live. With Battle Champions, I found the distinction between the recordings (remaster / original) sometimes hard to spot, but it’s always audible on Qhnnnl, though in a fun range where the enjoyment comes from the comparison, and not so much saying one is better than the other. It’s truly like taking some comic art and giving it to two great inkers: the output can be equally great, just in different ways. That’s what we’re hearing here.

Qhnnnl was a great conclusion to Dianogah’s original run, combining all lessons learned into a kind of refreshed, but familiar, sound. Gardner’s remasters help find even more throughlines across these releases, representing Qhnnnl as more of a capstone to some great albums vs. a speedrun summary of what came before.