Chrysalis

Robin Trower / Bridge of Sighs – A Demo Disc for Size and Space 

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More Psych Rock

  • One of the best copies of Trower’s amazingly well recorded Psych masterpiece to ever hit the site, with a KILLER Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) side two mated to a solid Double Plus (A++) side one – remarkably quiet vinyl too
  • This early UK pressing is huge, rich and punchy, with guitar solos that soar like few others you’ve heard
  • The title track is on this killer side one – you have never begun to hear it sound like this!
  • Brilliant engineering by Geoff Emerick at George Martin’s AIR studios – maybe the best sounding album Emerick ever made
  • Top 100 and 4 1/2 stars on AMG: “…his most stunning, representative, and consistent collection of tunes. Bridge of Sighs holds up to repeated listenings as a timeless work, as well as the crown jewel in Trower’s extensive catalog.”
  • If you’re a fan of Robin’s, this has to be seen as a Top Title from 1974 that belongs in your collection
  • It’s without a doubt his best sounding album, and, to our way of thinking, his only essential one

We’d been wandering around in the dark for more than a decade with Bridge of Sighs — that is, until about 2015 when we finally stumbled upon a certain UK Chrysalis pressing in audiophile playing condition.

Now we know just how good this album can sound. How good? Astonishingly good. The three-dimensional space is positively breathtaking on the best UK copies.

There is a substantial amount of Tubey Magic and liquidity on the tape, recalling the kind of hi-rez vintage analog sound that makes the luminous A Space in Time (1971) such a mind-expanding experience. Both albums have the kind of High Production Value sound that we go crazy for here at Better Records.

You can find many of our favorites in our Rock and Pop Top 100, and if we can find more of this title, it will surely be on the list as well. (more…)

Genesis – Abacab

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More Phil Collins

  • Abacab is back with KILLER Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades or close to them throughout this vintage UK pressing – remarkably quiet vinyl too
  • Forget the thin sounding domestic pressings – these British sides are rich, full-bodied and spacious with real bottom end weight
  • 4 1/2 stars: “Abacab was where this new incarnation of the band came into its own. Working with producer Hugh Padgham, the group escalated the innovations of Duke, increasing the pop hooks, working them seamlessly into the artiest rock here… as bright, bold, and jagged as the modernist artwork on the cover.”

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Huey Lewis and The News – Fore!

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  • The band’s 1986 follow-up to Sports finally arrives on the site with Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound or very close to it on both sides
  • The open, spacious soundstage and full-bodied tonality here are obvious for all to hear – huge, punchy, lively and rockin’ throughout
  • This copy will show you just how big, lively and POWERFUL this music can be on the right pressing
  • “This is by far one of the absolute best releases by Huey Lewis & the News. Powerful, hard-hitting, and quite emotional. . . for those of you who like hard-hitting, powerful rock music from the ’80s era.”

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Steeleye Span / Commoners Crown – A Masterpiece of English Folk Rock

Hot Stamper Albums with Huge Choruses

  • Incredible sound for this early British pressing, with huge and dynamic Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound throughout
  • The Tubey Magical Richness of this recording must be heard to be believed
  • Some of the best English Folk Rock Music ever recorded on analog tape and preserved on this lovely vinyl disc!
  • Allmusic gives it 4 1/2 stars: “Now a full-fledged rock group, competing with the likes of Jethro Tull and pumping out higher amperage than Fairport Convention, Steeleye engages in heavy riffing, savage attacks on their instruments, and generally kicks out the jams on this album.”

This original Porky/Pecko mastered British Chrysalis pressing has insanely good sound on both sides and, even more importantly, some of the best English Folk Rock Music ever recorded on analog tape (and preserved on this lovely vinyl disc!).

I grew to love this album back in the ’70s; the stereo store I worked at used it as a Demo Disc, so I heard it on a regular basis. Rather than getting sick of it, I actually bought a copy for my own collection to play at home. (Not sure if I managed to get an import, not sure if I would even have been able to hear the difference.)

Things have changed as we never tire of saying here at Better Records, but in a way you could say they have stayed the same. This used to be a Demo Disc, and now it’s REALLY a Demo Disc. You will have a very hard time finding a record with a richer, fuller, better-defined, dare I say “fatter” bottom.

Both sides have practically everything we look for in a Hot Stamper British Folk Rock Album — this copy is stunningly dynamic; has really solid bass; lovely transparency, incredible presence; tons of space and ambience; you name it, this copy has it. It does it all. (more…)

Jethro Tull – Living In The Past

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and One We Will Probably Never Shootout Again

  • A stunning Chrysalis British import double LP set with Triple Plus (A+++) grades or close to them on sides one, two and four and a solid Double Plus (A++) side three
  • You’re gonna love the sound here – clean, clear and full-bodied with great bass and solid midrange presence and energy
  • These are incredibly tough to find with the right sound and surfaces – this is one of the best copies to hit the site in years
  • 4 1/2 stars: “… this collection is seminal and essential to any Tull collection, and the only compilation by the group that is a must-own disc.”
  • Some records are just too consistently noisy for us to offer to our audiophile customers no matter how good they sound. We have a section for records that tend to be noisy, and it can be found here.

This set was very difficult to find with audiophile playing surfaces. Many of the copies we bought — at great expense I might add — were so heavily played and marked up they went right into the trade-in bin. This is one of the few that made the cutoff. Mint Minus Minus and a little noisier is about as quiet a copy as we could find.

If you want to hear how amazing Living In The Past can sound and don’t mind some surface problems, this is the copy to get. If for any reason you are not happy with the sound or condition of the album, we are of course happy to take it back for a full refund, including the domestic return postage.

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Jethro Tull – Benefit

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  • A superb copy of the band’s third studio album, with outstanding Double Plus (A++) sound from start to finish
  • The sound is big and rich, yet still wonderfully clean, clear and open with fantastic energy – you will not believe all the space and ambiance here
  • Huge, rich, tubey and solid, the best track on the album – To Cry You a Song – rocks like you will not believe
  • “Benefit forms the perfect bridge between the rolling, tumbling Tull of old and the tightly braided riffs and prickly lyrics presented by Aqualung.” Record Collector

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Steeleye Span / All Around My Hat – Our Shootout Winner from 2013

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Hot Stamper Albums with Huge Choruse

The best copy to ever hit the site! It ain’t easy to find clean British pressings of this one, which is why it’s taken us so long to get a copy like this up on the site. We played a good sized stack of these recently and only a couple did the job well enough to be considered Hot Stampers. This one is a big step up, with way less of the thick / murky / veiled sound that plagues many copies.

The sound is rich and full in the best tradition of English Rock, with no trace of the transistory grain that domestic rock pressings so often suffer from. The bass is deep, punchy, full up in the mix and correct. There’s plenty of it too, so those of you with less than well-controlled bass will have a tough time with this one. But never fear, it’s a great record to tweak with and perfect for evaluating equipment. (more…)

Blondie – Autoamerican

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DEMO DISC SOUND on this A+++ Hot Stamper Side One! This is one KILLER New Wave Pop Record. All the Blondie magic you could ever want is in these grooves! The truly POWERFUL sound of this Power Pop Band really comes through on this Bad Boy, or should we say Bad Girl? Whatever. This was the Hands Down Hot Stamper Winner of our latest shootout. Man, we had a ball with this one.

To be fair, consistency is the problem with this album, with some songs being absolute Pop Masterpieces (The Tide Is High on side one, Rapture on side two), but other tracks falling short of the standard set by Parallel Lines, where every track bar none was a gem of songcraft and High Gloss Pure Pop Production.

Still, what’s good is good, and the sound is STUNNING, with real Demo Disc qualities. The Right Pressing of the Right Stamper.

As expected, if you clean and play enough copies of a standard domestic major label album like this one, sooner or later you will stumble upon The One, and boy did we ever. One of our copies was OFF THE CHARTS with presence, breathy vocals, and punchy drums. It was positively swimming in studio ambience, with every instrument occupying its own space in the mix and surrounded by air. There was not a trace of grain, just the silky sweet highs we’ve come to expect from analog done right.

This is of course the premise behind Hot Stampers themselves. They are out there to be stumbled upon. You can’t tell what pressing from what era from what country is going to be The One (Keanu, are you listening?) until you actually sit down, clean and play a big pile of them. We found a source for this title sealed and managed to pick up over a dozen new copies, and those, along with some other used ones we had laying around, comprised our data pool. (more…)