4 out of 5

Label: Comedy Minus One

Produced by: Matthew Barnhart (remastered by)

My impression at the time was that Developer was somewhat less well received than Firewater, but I’ve always loved this album. It’s so warm, and embraces the more reflective sides of our lyricists, versus efforts that lean on odes to tour-life, like Blueblood. Now that we’re decades beyond release, though, every Silkworm album can be a classic for everyone, and so I love the reissues Comedy Minus One has been doing. That aforementioned “warmth” is great on wax, and a new remaster from standby Matthew Barnhart certainly can’t hurt.

Or, er, add very much? On the one hand, to Matthew’s credit, there’s no need to mess with a good thing: Albini’s original recording really captured the vibes of this disc well, and Barnhart – to my ears – has “brightened” the sound ever so slightly, but there’s a weighty reverb to Developer that’s quite entwined with its general aura and definitely shouldn’t be fiddled with too much. And so he didn’t. All to say: I don’t own the original version of this on wax, but assuming it’s not a bad pressing, I don’t know that this new master is a new experience.

There are, however, additional songs that were only available on an import version of Developer, and I shamefully didn’t know these tunes existed. If you’re not a lucky import owner, these re-included extras are 100% worth it, with Stray Bullets having quite a Blueblood-esque crunch to it, and Ogilvie and Numbered rollicking rockers akin to Firewater / Libertine. Most surprising to me are some early, alternate takes of eventual Lifestyle tunes: Dead Hair (aka Dead Air) and Bones.

Extra extra, being not part of that original import, is… a Crust Brothers track? Weird, but acceptable way to add some more runtime, since the D-side of this set runs pretty short.

Packaging fully reproduced from the original wax.