
Nuclear Blast Records‘ have announced that along with the rest of Dismember‘s discography, the band’s debut, Like An Overflowing Stream is now available on all streaming services in its long out of print and obscenely, indecently expensive original 1991 mastering.
The latter item is great news for those of us who remember what death metal sounded like in the ’90s before brick wall compression and limiting became the norm. Whether they realize it or not, one reason people love the sound of old vinyl is that less compressed masters were used. Modern vinyl is a toss up, but larger releases often have a less compressed master specifically for vinyl. Unfortunately, CDs, downloads and streaming services almost always get heavily compressed remasters when those are available.
But there is hope. Earache have been offering an alternative to the loudness trend for years with their Full Dynamic Range series. Metal Blade reissued their Mercyful Fate classics with the original masters. Peaceville Records seems to have left their back catalog largely alone. Hammerheart Records has produced some well-mastered reissues lately. Bright spots all. Additionally, many albums haven’t been remastered, or are available in both versions on streaming services (usually on different labels), but unless the label explicitly tags them as such (“Full Dynamic Range”, “1991 master”, etc.), finding them is a shot in the dark.
Perhaps this is Nuclear Blast’s first step in explicitly reissuing more of their back catalog in all its original dynamic glory.
Take action
If you want to see Nuclear Blast release more original masters, tell them so and include which titles you’d love to see. They don’t know what they can’t hear.
Some of Nuclear Blast’s classics (besides Dismember)
- Abomination, Tragedy Strikes
- Affliction, Prodigal Sun
- Amorphis, The Karelian Isthmus
- Amorphis, Tales From The Thousand Lakes
- Atrocity, Hallucinations
- Benediction, Subconscious Terror
- Benediction, Dark Is The Season
- Benediction, Transcend The Rubicon
- Brutality, Screams of Anguish
- Brutality, When The Sky Turns Black
- Death Strike, Fuckin’ Death
- Deceased, Luck of The Corpse
- Defecation, Purity Dillution
- Disembowelment, Transcendence Into The Peripheral
- Disharmonic Orchestra / Pungent Stench, Split
- General Surgery, Necrology
- Gorefest, Mindloss
- Gorefest, False
- Hypocrisy, Pentralia
- Hypocrisy, Osculum Obscenum
- Hypocrisy, The Fourth Dimension
- Hypocrisy, Inferior Devoties
- Kataklysm, The Mystical Gate of Reincarnation
- Macabre, Sinister Slaughter
- Master, Master
- Master, On The Seventh Day God Created…
- Messhugah, Contradictions Collapse
- Messhugah, None EP
- Monstrosity, Imperial Doom
- Mortification, Scrolls of The Megalith
- Incubus, Beyond The Unknown
- Pungent Stench, For God Your Soul, For Me Your Flesh
- Pungent Stench, Been Caught Buttering
- Sinister, Cross The Styx
- Sinister, Diabolical Summonings
- Sinister, Hate
- Revenant, Prophecies of A Dying World
- Righteous Pigs, Live And Learn
- Righteous Pigs, Stress Related
- Suffocation, Human Waste
- Winter, Into Darkness
- Winter, `Eternal Frost
- Various Artists, Corporate Death
- Various Artists, Death… Is Just The Beginning I
- Various Artists, Death… Is Just The Beginning II
- Various Artists, Death… Is Just The Beginning III
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