Anglagard's "Hybris" reissued!

Damn, you beat me to it! I saw this on Saturday and was just about to post the news – I ordered my copy of Hybris last night and wanted to leave a little gap before telling the world and unleashing the floodgates!

I must have got one of the last few copies of Epilog when I ordered direct from Mellotronen in Sweden at the end of 2006, as not long afterwards people were saying that both albums were out of print, but this is good news that it will be available again soon.

There are currently two copies of Hybris on the Amazon marketplace, a re-issue at £336 and an original CD release at £500 . Much as I wanted the album, there's no way I would pay that amount, especially as the band would not get a penny from it.

Mr ProgFreak wrote: I wonder why they don't simply publish the albums as downloads on the major platforms (iTunes, Amazon, Napster etc.).

Personally, I couldn't care less about that – I wouldn't want to listen to their music at anything less than CD quality anyway.

Plus, with a CD there's pretty artwork and should either my PC or my music player die, at least I'll have have a back-up and it won't be gone forever and have to be bought again.

Jorvik wrote: Mr ProgFreak wrote: I wonder why they don't simply publish the albums as downloads on the major platforms (iTunes, Amazon, Napster etc.). Personally, I couldn't care less about that – I wouldn't want to listen to their music at anything less than CD quality anyway. Plus, with a CD there's pretty artwork and should either my PC or my music player die, at least I'll have have a back-up and it won't be gone forever and have to be bought again.

Quite, Much as I love the convenience of mp3s, they are NO substitute for CDs. Ideally, the albums would always be available for legal download through those aforementioned outlets as well, but it would be a terrible shame if that was the ONLY way to get hold of them. CDs are lovely.

Warning. There now follows a severely off-topic rant:

Jorvik wrote: Completely off topic, but did anyone see Steven Wilson on UK news last weekend, driving over an iPod in protest at the fact that MP3 is poor quality? Apparently his latest album of 10 tracks has been indexed as 100 tracks to discourage people from playing the album on shuffle!

...That's a bit of an overreaction, don't you think? Putting obstacles in the way of people who wish to listen to music on shuffle strikes me as a very negative and aggressive gesture towards the listener. Why shouldn't someone be allowed to listen to a song in the context of different songs, other than the original album tracks it was placed with?

I mean, last week I posted a couple of CD compilations to some friends, in an effort to try and get them interested in some new sounds. If I'd wanted to include one of Mr Wilson's new tracks I would have presumably had to have laboriously stitched together ten individual snippets after ripping the album before adding it to the tracklist.

I'm a great believer in listening to albums in full, and hardly ever put my mp3 player onto shuffle (only when I simply can't decide what to listen to), but to try and actively PROHIBIT it... Well, it just seems like such a petty, miserable thing to do.

We shall now return you to your scheduled discussion.





Edited by Trouserpress - March 23 2009 at 14:35

Jorvik wrote: Mr ProgFreak wrote: I wonder why they don't simply publish the albums as downloads on the major platforms (iTunes, Amazon, Napster etc.). Personally, I couldn't care less about that – I wouldn't want to listen to their music at anything less than CD quality anyway. Plus, with a CD there's pretty artwork and should either my PC or my music player die, at least I'll have have a back-up and it won't be gone forever and have to be bought again.

AT LAST!!!

Nice to see it's finally been reissued, I love Buried Alive so it'll be nice to finally hear some of the songs in their original form.

Negoba wrote: How many people even in a music-phile forum like this, actually can tell the difference? Most folks don't even have more than a 2-band EQ, let alone the ear to tell the difference between a 192k Mp3 and CD quality. I barely do and I've spend many many hours mixing and mastering music.   Isn't FLAC still 50-60% of memory usage as .wav? Which defeats part of the convenience of the mp3 in the first place.

I daresay the MP3s streamed from this site are probably not very high bitrate so as to save bandwidth, but I can hear it – they sound flat, dull and lifeless. I still think one of the strongest arguments for lossless is "how do you know whether you're missing information if it isn't there to be heard".

As for EQ, I don't believe in it and always turn it off: I don't want the music unnecessarily coloured by EQ or supposedly-pleasant sounding speakers – I prefer to listen to music as near to as the artist intended as possible, which is one reason for having studio monitors and decent in-ear monitors for my music player.

Yes, FLAC compresses file size to about 50–60% that of WAV, but as I said earlier, these days with high capacity miniature hard-drives and flash devices and high-speed internet, MP3 is not so much a convenience as a pointless compromise.

I agree with Mr ProgFreak about music being the most important thing, but the additional aspects of a physical medium and artwork etc still adds something to the whole experience which it would be a shame to lose. I don't like the idea of only having files though as they can easily be lost or corrupted (which I've had happen on occasion), with a CD it's always there as a back-up should the worst happen.

Anyway, I'm really looking forward to getting Hybris as I'm looking forward to holding it and looking at the artwork (I shall say no more).

Negoba wrote: How many people even in a music-phile forum like this, actually can tell the difference? Most folks don't even have more than a 2-band EQ, let alone the ear to tell the difference between a 192k Mp3 and CD quality. I barely do and I've spend many many hours mixing and mastering music.   Isn't FLAC still 50-60% of memory usage as .wav? Which defeats part of the convenience of the mp3 in the first place.

There is no conceivable difference between a properly coded ~256kbit mp3 and the CD ... there have been many tests that proved this. I downloaded Mr. Wilson's album as mp3 from eMusic.com ... sounds great! And I can even play it from beginning to end ...

Jorvik wrote: Negoba wrote: How many people even in a music-phile forum like this, actually can tell the difference? Most folks don't even have more than a 2-band EQ, let alone the ear to tell the difference between a 192k Mp3 and CD quality. I barely do and I've spend many many hours mixing and mastering music.   Isn't FLAC still 50-60% of memory usage as .wav? Which defeats part of the convenience of the mp3 in the first place. I daresay the MP3s streamed from this site are probably not very high bitrate so as to save bandwidth, but I can hear it – they sound flat, dull and lifeless. I still think one of the strongest arguments for lossless is "how do you know whether you're missing information if it isn't there to be heard". As for EQ, I don't believe in it and always turn it off: I don't want the music unnecessarily coloured by EQ or supposedly-pleasant sounding speakers – I prefer to listen to music as near to as the artist intended as possible, which is one reason for having studio monitors and decent in-ear monitors for my music player. Yes, FLAC compresses file size to about 50–60% that of WAV, but as I said earlier, these days with high capacity miniature hard-drives and flash devices and high-speed internet, MP3 is not so much a convenience as a pointless compromise. I agree with Mr ProgFreak about music being the most important thing, but the additional aspects of a physical medium and artwork etc still adds something to the whole experience which it would be a shame to lose. I don't like the idea of only having files though as they can easily be lost or corrupted (which I've had happen on occasion), with a CD it's always there as a back-up should the worst happen. Anyway, I'm really looking forward to getting Hybris as I'm looking forward to holding it and looking at the artwork (I shall say no more).