new arcade fire album brick-walled?

I agree, the mastering sucks - the vocals are distorted (i don't think it's on purpose) and it just sounds compressed.

But I can cope - it's an incredible album in every other way!

This is kind of funny to me considering the fuss they made about recording it on analog and mastering the CD from vinyl.

The entire album is a massive disappointment. Don't know what went wrong during those 3 years.

Hmm, just listened to the album, and quite liked it.

Reminds me a bit of the glam rock of the seventies.

Is it similar to either of the first two musically? Amazon has it for $3.99 right now, as cheap as it is I won't bite if the album's an utter disappointment..

Quote:

Originally Posted by bridge8989 

I just got the suburbs and the mastering sounds terrible to me. anyone else listen to this album yet?

Completely agree.  Keyboard sounds like its fighting against vocals for space.  In a New York Times article, Arcade Fire stressed their use of 1940's tube mixing board they used and the effort they used to create 'analog' music (then converted to digital for most of us anyway).  The effort is a fail.  They should have used that time working on their lyrics. 

sounds like the pre-master / final mix may have sounded pretty good.

unfortunately, it doesn't matter how well it was recorded, when you brickwall the final master, it's going to sound bad.

tragic.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jwjw 

Is it similar to either of the first two musically? Amazon has it for $3.99 right now, as cheap as it is I won't bite if the album's an utter disappointment..

You can listen to the new album here:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=98679384
 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tiemen 

You can listen to the new album here:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=98679384
 

Listening to it right now, thanks. I can't liken it to either albums, though it's definitely not Funeral-sounding...

20 minutes in, quite liking it, though it isn't exactly spectacular..

Edit: Never really did any focused listening, but the background music of the album sounds much nicer (though different from its predecessors), but the #1 Tunnels-esque singing is missed..

Deal-breaker bad mastering, or "I'm-an-audiophile-snob" bad mastering?

I'm listening to it as I type with my T1's and I got to say, it's a great album but the sound quality like others have said is terrible.  It's got the usual loudness war like most modern/indie albums, but for me the vocals are piercing and so distorted it makes it tough to listen to the whole album all the way through.  FWIW

Yeah, add me to the complaint list. I read some clippings that mentioned it as intentional? AF was going for a  claustrophobic feel or some such. Whatever, it sounds like butt; too bad for such nuanced music.   

I really like the album otherwise. It could of been a classic had they trimmed some fat.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ChiComm4 

Deal-breaker bad mastering, or "I'm-an-audiophile-snob" bad mastering?

 

for me, it was deal-breaker bad mastering.

it's not the loudest album out there.  but, there are textbook problems that make it really hard for me to listen to:

midrange glare and congestion (vocals indistinguishable from guitars and keyboards)

you can play the "where did the drums go?" game during complex passages.

loss of interest and / or fatigue after only a few songs.