4 out of 5

Label: SideOneDummy

Produced by: Nick Townsend (remastered by)

Original review here, this being a review for the quality of the reissue.

I was on a bit of a Suicide Machines re-visit when I last passed by Match and Some Gasoline, and found it fun if wanting. Revisiting it on its own terms – without the just-listened-to context of the band’s catalogue leading into it – I enjoyed it quite a bit, although I might be experiencing some residual prestige from SideOneDummy reissuing the album; I always considered the first to SM Hollywood Records releases as all-time classics, but in retrospect, the jump to SOD definitely ushered in the true second era of the band, and the rerelease helps to clarify that for me.

But that’s peripheral. In terms of what you get with this: some changeups in artwork, two extra tunes, and a remaster. To the latter, the original record already sounded pretty good, but Nick Townsend did an excellent job of scaling all the hooks for vinyl – first time on this format – and juggling both the pop and hardcore levels while syncing to the “warmer” sound of an LP. In short: the record sounds great. The extra tunes are worth it, but with caveats – Bones and Ashes is an acoustic number, and would probably be tepid mid-album, but I do think is a quality extra, and is performed sincerely. It’s not cringe, which definitely isn’t the case for a lot of punks-go-acoustic numbers. Smile, the final track, is an excellent rocker, but note that it is firstly a Potshot cover, and secondly was previously available on an EP.

The artwork changes could be quibbled over, because we lost some photos and a piece of artwork. But the artwork was… very 90s (the record came out in 2003, mind you), and I think the new photos and typeface changes and etc. upscale this to something a bit more modern and mature; the original booklet maybe was a bit tryhard, withs its hard-to-read red text on black. Switching the lyric sheet to something much clearer is a plus.

One major-ish snipe, though, is that the tracklist is… wrong, with songs from one side listed on the other. Is this a huge deal? Absolutely not, but it’s unfortunately pretty sloppy, even if I’m sure it was some miscommunication or last minute change-up due to the bonus tracks or etc., and artwork was already printed. Fair, but still, it sucks to give something the remaster / reissue treatment.

Overall, absolutely worth it. Maybe this was already on your lists of top SM records, but I’d generally overlooked it, and this reissue helped me to give it some due attention.