Never one to pass by a Japanese CD that does its best to lovingly recreate the original vinyl edition, this Love and Rockets example had been calling my name from afar for some time…
If you are familiar with the original UK issue that appeared in late 1986 then you’ll see from the image below that the fold-out poster that accompanied the release has been lovingly shrunk down to CD proportioned size for inclusion in this release, as well as the original sleeve design. It comes with an extra black and white booklet, plus the obligatory ‘obi’ strip, sealed in a plastic cover to keep that mid-’80s post-punk-neo-psychedelia flavour fresh…
I recall buying the original LP of this this at the time having just seen it appear in the window of my particular favourite record shop haunt one evening – I must not have been keeping up with the new release news in the music press or else it didn’t have much of a build up. Either way, it was a pleasant surprise – though I do recall having to return the first pressing because of the amount of surface noise on the acoustic version of ‘All In My Mind’ and the intro to the fantastic ‘An American Dream’. Static hell crackling away.
While the packaging revisits the original vinyl release, the CD itself is as per the Beggars Banquet remastered re-issue from 2001 and therefore includes a number of additional tracks, as well as restoring the original running order that the first CD version monkeyed around with. I think this release appeared in 2004.