4 out of 5

Label: Iodine Records

Produced by: Jack Shirley (remastered by), Kurt Ballou (remastered by)

Well geez, the remaster I didn’t know I needed. And, hm, newsflash: maybe I still don’t? But: in terms of value, this is a reissue that does it almost perfectly; and even though I’m trying to rate the collection and not the content exactly – since that’s more subjective – it’s possible the criticisms I cite are only made so I can justify knocking off a star for really disliking this particular remaster.

So: Piebald’s return has netted us some awesome reissues, which includes this expanded edition of the band’s second full-length, which is a fascinating snapshot of a band fully committed to growing up and switching gears and doing a damned good job of it. Alongside a Jack Shirley for-vinyl remaster of that material, we get Kurt Ballou-recorded demos for the album / from the time of the album – which Ballou also 2026 remastered – and four tracks from three different live sets, spanning 1999 – 2020. That’s a lot! And think about how wild that is: 1999 material originally recorded and remastered by three drastically different producers in 2026, plus snapshots of the band’s live sound across three distinct eras – ’99, ’07, and 2020. If you happen to pair all of this with listening to the original album (and you should!), it’s an insanely cool ride that shows off how the same material is shaped in the studio and across time.

…This supposes your fandom, of course, or at least enough curiosity to care, but we’ll suppose that a prerequisite for investing in a reissue like this.

Let me offer up some more substantial stuff as a “review:” the quality of the sound is top notch. Shirley’s production (and Iodine’s vinyl pressing) glimmers and shines; without knowing how the original demos sound, Ballou mastered these such that they sit right alongside Shirley’s work as distinctive but of similar fidelity / volume. Same goes for the live cuts: you can kinda pick out they’re from different times because the 2020 cut is slower (they’re old men now!) and the 2007 recording syncs with the group’s evolved pop chops of the time versus the 1999 songs being a bit more punky and riffing (and of the time of Venetian’s original recording), but in terms of sound quality and so on, there’s no gap between this stuff and the rest. You also get a fun take on the old artwork / lyric sheet, dusted off and rearranged by Jeff Caudill, with extra liner notes from Travis.

The downside? Well, I’ll be too critical of Shirley’s remaster in a moment, but even though the live tracks are a good idea… there’s also the sense that it was a reach to fill this out to two full LPs, since the demos are only an EP’s worth of stuff. And I would guess that the cross-era thing was purposeful, but the live selections are kind of random, and repeat two songs from both the Ballou demos and the main album, resulting in triplicate tracks. Surely there were other live selections to pull from that would’ve / could’ve given us almost another full version of Venetian? Or maybe trying to get Ballou or someone to remaster some rare singles, I dunno.

And on the completely subjective side: man, when I first put this on and heard Shirley’s take, I really thought I misremembered this disc and it was actually pretty annoying. I listened to it twice through and I was like, I recognize these songs, but they sound… corny. Then I went back and listened to the original, and they sound awesome.

Shirley’s remaster is technically awesome: again, it glimmers. However, what I believe I’m hearing is Jack trying to make old Piebald sound like modern Piebald: the bass gets downplayed; rawness of the guitars is cleaned up and the riffs are jacked up alongside poppy-ing the drums; Travis’ earnest and scratchy screech is cleaned up and sparkles. It’s quite an accomplishment! Old music sounds anew, and could be presented alongside Accidental Gentleman-era or the 2026 album stuff. …Except the Piebald of 1999 was not that Piebald. They needed those edges, especially to make the earnestness of the album work. Venetian is this weird cringe of nigh-adulthood that, I think, only hits as hard as it does because it sounds so sincere. Something about cleaning it up so much to give it modern day Piebald confidence robs it of that sincerity to a degree. Weird!

But I totally get (in my narrative at least) what Shirley was going for, and I appreciate the attempt. It’s consistent, and I’m sure that there are fans who surely dig it.