Best Quality Devo on CD Yet!!
SpudOz | Melbourne, Australia | 08/23/2008
(5 out of 5 stars)
"Devo's WB catalogue has always sounded rather ordinary on CD and the quality of the packaging has been shoddy. This 2008 Japanese release sets a new standard for both audio AND visual presentation in this limited edition box set. All of the albums have been remastered for this collection and Q? Are We Not Men? A. We Are Devo! and Freedom of Choice have been remastered for the first time for CD. All of the titles sound stunning. This is the best that Devo is going to sound on CD without remastering from the original multi-track master tapes (most of which are said to be lost). Tape hiss is still evident though it never detracts from the listening experience. For the first time Q? A! and FOC sound like they should. The sound is more open and both instruments and vocals are far more discernible than on any previous release.
The packaging is superb!! Every album is packaged as originally released including all inserts such as Club Devo catalogues, posters and sleeve inserts. Duty Now For The Future and Oh, No It's Devo even have the perforated covers and New Traditionalists has a mini mock bonus Working In The Coalmine single. The quality of the printing is of the highest quality. Freedom of choice is clearer and more detailed than ANY previous vinyl or CD release (and I own quite a few). To top it off, a fold together cube of Devo's Japanese 7" single covers and rare photos is included.
Any quibbles? No B-sides or bonus tracks (though Dev-O Live is the same extended package as the Rhino Handmade release). It would have been complete if the B-sides and bonus tracks could have been "hidden" as bonus tracks after the regular album had finished.
To sum it up - Simply Stunning!!"
A labour of love
James F. Mcdermott | Brooklyn NY United States | 06/28/2009
(5 out of 5 stars)
"This is a simply stunning collection all around. The sound quality is so much better than on any previous CD version that there is simply no comparison. The packaging of each record is exactly the same as the original LPs, right down to the perforated cover of Duty Now, and the inclusion of a faux 45 rpm "Working In A Coal Mine" in New Traditionalists. If you're a Devo fan, this is the package to get, you will rediscover these records all over again. 100% recommended."
Beyond perfection. Hock a kidney if you have to, but you can
Stuart Gardner | Interzone, Alphaville | 03/18/2009
(5 out of 5 stars)
"The review here by SpudOz is absolutely correct in every particular. I've been the hardest of hardcore Devo fanatics ever since the first album was released in 1978 and I never dreamed that it would be possible for their glorious work to ever sound this fine. Our Japanese friends at Phantom Sound and Vision have done right by the Fab Five and gone further than the most fanatical sense of duty and devotion might demand. I've heard these albums literally thousands of times, but now I'm actually hearing elements and nuances which I have never caught before (and I'm not an audiophile with a golden ear; the sound of these discs is dramatically improved in ways which even the most casual listeners will notice immediately).
I commend you to the level of insane detail given to the packaging:
With the original issue of the first album, the inner sleeve (with photos and lyrics) was printed on a glossy stock. That same grade of paper is used for reproducing the inner sleeve of the corresponding CD. The inner sleeve of the second album, again with images and lyrics, used a rougher stock, so Phantom Sound and Vision went to the trouble to seek out that exact same paper to make their reproduction. This applies to all of the sleeves, jackets and inserts in the box (Devo's first seven albums, comprising their entire career at Warner Brothers). The result is as if mint copies of those seven albums had been miniaturized by the shrinking technology of Fantastic Voyage; it's absolutely breathtaking and unlike anything I've ever seen. I don't think the artists had anything to do with choosing the grade and paper stock of their album sleeves and inserts, but even this trivial detail was enough to warrant the needed attention, effort and expense which Phantom Sound and Vision knew fans would marvel over.
The jackets of Duty Now for the Future and Oh, No! It's Devo originally had perforations (around the image of the band on the front of the former and allowing the buyer to fold out a standing leg on the back of the latter), and you'll find the same in miniature here. Freedom of Choice and New Traditionalists originally had wall posters as inserts, and at last they have them again (now 14 1/4" x 10", and bright and clear). New Traditionalists had a sticker in its lower right corner bearing the image of Nutra and promoting the inserted poster and 45 rpm single of Working in the Coalmine, and Shout had one in its upper left listing the song titles. Even those stickers are back, not printed as part of the jacket image, but actually remade as tiny stickers and affixed to the jackets in the same locations as the originals -- absolutely unreal.
The two sided card stock insert and the red generic "Warner Bros. Music Show" jacket from Dev-o Live are exactly as you remember them, and the disc contains the entire 22 track show from the Rhino Handmade reissue, not the paltry six we had to live with back in 1980.
Remember that 45 rpm of Working in the Coalmine? When you see how it was fed through the Fantastic Voyage miniaturizer you are simply not going to believe it.
And this rave has just been about the paper, but wait until you hear the music! Isao Kikuchi deserves an award for his digital remastering of these astonishing albums. Hear Devo as you have never heard Devo before, as they have always deserved, and marvel.
Printed lyrics for all seven albums are included.
Thank you, Phantom Sound and Vision, Isao Kikuchi, and Devo."
