5 out of 5

Label: Bulbous Monocle

Produced by: Mark Gergis (remastered by)

Original review here, with this serving as a review of the remaster / reissue itself.

As before, love and care applied here, with your appreciation for Lovelyville’s muddy, lo-fi sound likely determining how you feel about the remaster. For me, this is one of my least favorite TFUL albums, but I was looking forward to seeing how cleaning up the material (as that’s how I hear Mark Gergis’ work) would / could change my take. Gergis has chosen to keep the clanky, messy spirit of this release alive – lots of reverb, lots of levels smushing into one another – while highlighting the “notes” where he can, with crisper / crunchier guitars and better separation of vocals and the horns. To me, this helps the music flow together more, and definitely made my time with the album worthwhile; still not my favorite, but the highlights stick moreso, and feel worth it amidst the other tunes.

But again, this is about the value of the remaster, so at the very, as-unsubjective-as-possible, Gergis has absolutely brought out a different aural dimension of the disc that makes listening to it again a new experience.

The packaging, besides some color tweaks (which I prefer) and replacement of the Matador logo with Bulbous’, looks identical; the LP labels, the liner notes, all of it: it feels and looks like new-off-the-shelf replica. The label has done great by this TFUL fan once again.