Review Summary: A refreshing strategy.
27th May will mark the tenth anniversary of, arguably, Architects’ best album to date,
All Our Gods Have Abandoned Us. To celebrate the occasion, the band have given the album a complete remix and remaster. However, this is where things get interesting. If you’ve been scouring every crevice of the internet for an official stream or download your efforts will have been in vain, because this particular release is not only admirably exclusive to physical media, but vinyl alone. If you’ve read any of my reviews or watched any of the interviews I’ve done over the years, you’ll know that I’m a staunch advocate of physical media and trying to get the word out that physical copies of not just music but all aspects of the arts are an essential component of the “experience” itself. Not only do you see something for your money, having a tangible piece of art in your hands that you can listen to, watch or play at any time, but you aren’t beholden to corporations – something they are trying to do away with (you will own nothing and be happy about it, as they say). Having a physical copy also removes that perennial issue where you go to your chosen streaming service, only to find there’s been some sort of copyright dispute and the song or album you wanted to hear has been removed – or there’s music out there that isn’t available for a myriad of reasons on streaming platforms, or indeed sometimes even when you’re sailing the seas, because it’s lost to the passage of time. As vast as my physical collection is, I still come up against this issue at times. Couple that with the fact the quality of streaming is complete dog*** when compared to a hard copy, and there’s little reason to listen to or watch something streamed other than the convenience it provides.
It is this very mindset, the gravitation towards convenience, that has been a salient contributor in diminishing the experience over the last two decades – giving unlimited access to millions and millions of albums at your fingertips so they can be streamed ambivalently, with various distractions in the way of you experiencing what an artist has put all that effort into creating. And I’m not here to judge; I’m as guilty as anyone for having stuff on in the background, but it’s hard to overlook the damage it’s done to the industry overall. As such, I wholeheartedly commend the band on their gambit here, because they’ve not only gone down a route that promotes physical media, they’ve doubled down on it and narrowed
All Our Gods Have Abandoned Us 10th Anniversary’s options to a single format – one that requires complete investment in what the band has to say. As much as I enjoy the size of a vinyl record, the art and the big liner notes, I will also concede it is a format that requires your attention – especially if it’s a long album with multiple discs that need flipping and changing after so long. It’s the antithesis of “convenience”, actively forcing the listener to go through several trials before they’re worthy enough to listen to the album of choice. The reward is that it’s making you cut out the bullsh*t, quieting the noise and fast pace of modern society around you, and making you sit down for forty-or-so minutes so you can listen to an album without distraction.
Overall, it’s a strategy I hope more bands employ in the future. Maybe we’ll come to a point where artists with a massive following take risks and release not just reissues like this, but entirely new works that force an ardent newer generation of fan to experience the record in such confined conditions. But for now, I’ll take this small win.
What….?
This is an album review?
Oh…
I’m not going to have you sucking eggs if you’re an Architects fan,
All Our Gods Have Abandoned Us is the apotheosis of Architects’ career. It’s a thoughtful banger with fantastic songwriting and genuine emotion, a fertile recipe for the “vinyl experience”. The mix itself. Well, it retains the original album’s core essence, but it adds a little more space for everything to breathe. The ambience in particular really benefits from this version, while the drums feel punchier and have a greater dynamic and clarity in what Dan is playing. The results are pretty balanced and reverent, quite honestly. The changes focus on fidelity and space, with a concerted effort being put into not taking anything away from the original sound. If I’m being pedantic, the emphasis on space kind of takes away from the brutality and chaos of its claustrophobic 2016 counterpart, but it’s a given when you’re allowing the intricacies and layers to cut through more. Overall though,
All Our Gods Have Abandoned Us 10th Anniversary is just different enough to warrant fan interest, as it does present a
slightly different, albeit innocuous experience.
