Originally written by Dan Staige.
Oh you gotta love re-releases. They are commonly reissued w/ a half-assed re-mastering job, “bonus” tracks, and additional or new artwork. It’s the same album you already have only it’s slightly altered w/ little new things that you MUST HAVE according to the label. This little marketing trick has been in practice by the music industry for quite some time now, and quite frankly, I fucking despise it. In rare instances it can be a positive thing; if you’ve been meaning to get that “classic” but it’s out of print and hard to come by, such as Suffocation’s “Despise the Sun”, then I am all for it. But don’t turn it into a glitter circus by adding unnecessary or “use once” features just so you can sell the same album to the same person twice.
The latest on this re-mastering trend list is Darkane. “Rusted Angel” was their 1st album and it was w/ their original vocalist Larry Mackrory (you can hear him in a “duet” on Expanding Senses’ “Chaos vs. Order”). Personally I prefer Sadow’s vox because I think they have contributed to precisely defining Darkane’s modern day sound. You pretty much know it’s Darkane you’re hearing w/ him, unless it’s a new Scarve song. This band has pretty much stayed in the same lane throughout their discography; powerful thrash/death that is heavy and aggressive. They’ve gained in the technicality dept. but lost in nothing else. Those of you w/ nothing better to do than read my reviews know that I generally abhor thrash of any kind, especially Swedish. I mean come on, can you honestly say that Carnal Forge writes songs that sound different from each other? That drum beat, that timing…just kill me. But I’ve always thought Darkane was different. Their smooth, organized leads and tight, dense riffing that actually leads in more of a death style than sloppy fucking thrash, along w/some insane technical moments on their last 2 efforts, and just plain heavy chord employment gets multiple spins out of me. If you have “Rusted Angel” already than you know that Darkane has stuck to their guns, and gotten better in the process.
This album has been remastered over a mastering job that sounded good to start with. I can hear a little difference but nothing that means “to buy or not to buy”. The remastering was completely unnecessary. What, next year are we going to have “Expanding Senses” remastered? One thing I will note though is the quality of the 2 live tracks. Great sound and superb band unison, which is something that comes to be expected from this band today.
I guess what I’m trying to say is if you’re going to buy this album, do it because Darkane is and always has been a good band. Not because of the dress up bullshit. You might listen to the live tracks once or twice, and you may or may not notice a difference in production quality. If you’ve already got the original one, save your money for the next Darkane disc.
