The monologue in new Rosier sounds awful, but generally I’m feeling good about the rerecordings after sampling them a bit! The bass sounds wonderful on these. I’m leaning towards enjoying the new Style more than Mother, which isn’t very surprising given that these were done by 2023 Luna Sea
Finally gave both remake albums a proper listen. My opinions about them are totally different from each other.
First of all MOTHER; I’m not really happy with the remakes. I n my opinion the mix is missing the spefiic 90s sound which made the album so unique. The “rowdyness” is gone. But maybe I’m a little bit too critical as I know this album by heart and it is one of my favorite releases ever.
The “new” FACE TO FACE however is very interesting and the new MOTHER is beautiful with the orchestra parts - but for f sake what did they do to my dear FAKE?? I hope they don’t play this version when I see them in December…
STYLE: This remake is much better in my opinion. The cleaner sound suits the songs very well and gives them a more elegant approach, don’t know how to describe it better. The bass stands out more and sounds really good (different then on MOTHER, where the bass is lacking in songs like CIVILIZE for example)
I really like the new versions of LUV U, FOREVER & EVER and HURT. And what they did to SELVES is phenomenal! This song never clicked with me but the remake sounds so good!
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MOTHER and STYLE were masterpieces so it’s almost impossible to improve upon them.
I tempered my expectations and listened to the STYLE remake today.
My opinions summarised:
- The remake has more consistent sound mixing and a more even frequency range but I don’t think it necessarily sounds better on some tracks.
- I prefer Ryuichi’s voice in the original, Sugizo’s solos in the original, the guitar mixing in the original, the female vocals in the original. Hmm, probably almost everything in the original…
I actually have the opposite impression of SELVES. It was one of my favourites before but the guitars in the remake at the end have changed for the worse. I also don’t like the distortion that appears through the song (e.g. around 1:30).
If the original were a 9/10 this is probably around a 7. Not bad but I’d rather listen to the original.
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Listening to it now and that just happened and it was genuinely unnerving; took me right out of the experience and several moments before I could get back into the song.
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MOTHER - Face to Face sounds hollow and devoid of its original grittiness (probably my favorite song on the original album), AURORA and TRUE BLUE were probably my favorite from MOTHER. This entire album just sounds louder for no reason other than that it’s newer.
STYLE - RA-SE-N, LUV U, 1999, SELVES are standouts.
Am I crazy or does this new mastering show just how much their compositions sound like BUCK-TICK songs? I’m listening to STYLE and there’s so many songs I feel you swap out Ryuichi for Atsushi and it’s a BUCK-TICK song.
Overall these are good remasters of old albums but I don’t feel they’re as much self cover albums as others I’ve heard. There’s no new take on any of these songs like for instance INORAN’s solo self cover or KIYOHARU covering KUROYUME songs etc.
It’s definitely worth a listen, worth having on in the car I’d imagine, but the charm and mystery of the originals is lost and might just make you nostalgic for those. It’s a cool modern repackaging artwork wise and could be the perfect thing for new fans to get into their old music (some people can’t stand the way music sounded in the 90s 
) but I’m definitely not buying it, not even digitally.
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Ok, just listened to both, and they came out exactly how I had forecast: completelty devoid of the youthful energy of the originals. What’s the point of better production (though I would question that - as someone noted, it is merely “louder”, to keep up with the times) if the intensity is not there. FFS…I listened to “End of Sorrow” and it sounded like the original played in slow motion, with vocals provided by a tired old man. I wanted to cry. I’ll ask again: what was the point? I doubt the guys hurt for cash, and even if so, a “STYLE” and/or “MOTHER” nostalgia tour would have taken care of that alone, without any need to defile (arguably their two most) classic records. “Style” was the first J-rock CD I bought other than X, and I bought it as it came out, so it has a special place in my heart, and this makes this charade all the more upsetting. Feeling like like the guys just pissed on my teenage years…
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I REALLY love these albums for what they are. Aurora ACTUALLY sounds like a shoegaze tune. MOTHER has no fade out. ROSIER…no. lol. It’s still lame. LUV U finally has full body. F&E…still sappy as hell. Selves is a better song somehow. Im a very very happy girl knowing this exists.
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The spoken word part in the new Rosier sounds like a TikTok AI voice.
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This trend to do self cover is an horrible Idea. Especially with classic albums. They became classics for reason. Some albums are timeless, it has no value to record them again.
(One of the only time, I felt like a remake was amazing was with the band Pierrot and their album “Dictators circus”. This album really kept the soul of the songs while increasing the emotion. It’s a very rare case)
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I know I’m kind of odd out on this opinion, but I looooove when artists do their own music but in “the future” because to me it says “this is what it would have sounded like if we had the technology to make it happen”
In any case. I didn’t care for the original Style, but this version is good. Overall though of course I like them both. Love this band.
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I think the new STYLE is great, there are some nuances that come out more due to the clearer recording quality and/or production choices. They haven’t lost their strength and gracefulness either. While I do like the original, this one feels fresh to me in a way a brand-new album would.
I haven’t listened to the new MOTHER as much or as closely yet, but one thing I noticed there is some kind of weird volume equalizing / compression thing going on that takes me out of the experience… The best I can describe it is that subdued / ethereal parts seem like they’re super loud, but when the full band bursts in with all guns blazing it somehow sounds quieter and flat? There’s probably a proper technical term for this phenomenon, idk. Other than that, performance-wise I’m enjoying it!
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Are the new versions louder because of the compression, the way they are mixed or just different because of modern recording techniques? Overall I think the crushed dynamics don’t add much and really detract from a lot of songs. Are mixing and mastering engineers just aiming toward earbud listeners where everything needs to be LOUD?
The main thing I find striking about these new recordings is that the vocals just feel more in-your-face like it’s sitting on top of everything in the mix. The original versions felt like the vocals were between or at the center of all of the instruments - i.e. things felt balanced.
In Silence, my favorite track off Style, seems to suffer exactly from this. Ryuichi sounds like he’s singing a karaoke version where the vocal mic is set too high relative to the music.
There are little flourishes I enjoy about the new versions but overall I’ll probably stick with the originals. The title track Mother has a great extended ending which I think adds something worth listening to over the original.
The bass is fat and deep which I appreciate. Too many albums / artists give bass a back-seat in the mix like Lars did to Jason Newsted when he joined Metallica. The first three albums by Luna Sea are all lacking in this regard. Believe from the CD single sounds infinitely better than the version that was mixed for Eden so it was clearly bad creative choices that made those albums sound so thin and rough.
That said, the original Mother and Style never really lacked in it’s bass, nor mixing and mastering. They were already leagues better than LS/Image/Eden before it so the new recordings aren’t so much of a huge jump like it was when they re-recorded the original Luna Sea album in 2011.
Songs like the aforementioned In Silence definitely does not benefit from this new recording style. This song is such a delicate balance between the soft and sugar-y vocals, Inoran’s acoustic guitar and Sugizo’s reverbed guitar tone which in the new version are just all competing with each other and nothing stands out. The solo at 3m23s is a perfect example of fatigue city caused by overcompression or just poor mixing.
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Compressing music to complete hell during the mastering process has been a very common thing for at least 25 years. But, i imagine the only reason it’s happening here is because these are new versions, therefore they must sound bigger.
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if it’s like that, that is a weird mindset. They could try make it sound different, and not necessarily bigger
I really don’t like the approach of some of these songs being played at a slightly slower tempo. They did it with a song (I can’t remember which one) on the 2011 version of the self-titled, but Ra-se-n and Genesis of Mind do not benefit from this at all. The drive behind these songs is completely gone here.
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The instrumental differences are interesting in certain songs and at least give something “new” to listen to, but unfortunately Ryuichi’s vocals at this point are pretty underwhelming. I just can’t really tolerate it, at certain parts it’s akin to nails on chalkboard.
Also that mid-section in ROSIER, yikes.
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