Feline

This Culture Factory Remaster has the song "Golden Brown" on it and is in a mini lp style paper sleeve reminiscent of the Japanese mini lp sleeve Cd's. I am glad to say that the remastered sound on this entire CD is a success. The sound is clear, crisp, full of detail and the bass is robust, yet not overdone. It's exciting to listen to this disk as it reveals previously unheard musical details and it's obvious the band was/is supremely talented. This is a winner.

Great!

Excellent early stranglers CD.

Awesome album

These albums were made to be listened to as a continuous piece of music, side one then side two (in the old days)Sticking a commercially successful single in the middle of the album is just a spoiler, ruining the art and the flow. Golden Brown belongs in the middle of La Folie and should stay there.Otherwise this is a bright mix, seems tinny at times. Will suit some, I prefer my now worn LP despite the surface noise.

Ok

Going through a phase of finding LPs from my school days, so was very enthusiastic to find this one. Always reminds me of summers on campus, laying outside with an ice cream...

Excellent sound quality on a very good album.

Well, after a number of delays, the 4 Epic era mini LP card sleeve remasters from Culture Factory (a US company who seem to be trying to give the Japanese a run for their money with audiophile CD reissues) are finally with us. One question all Stranglers fans will have needs to be asked though: where is '10', fellas?This is the fourth CD version of 'Feline' I've owned, but the first edition I've re-bought (sigh) since the 2001 Sony version, which I needed to augment my Japanese 1999 Nice price edition, which had some different bonus tracks. As this review is aimed at fans who already know the record, I'm not going to bang on about the music - most of which is absolutely excellent (I've always had minor reservations about 'It's a Small World', 'Let's Tango In Paris' and 'Blue Sister', feeling that some of the bands' b sides from this period are better - but then that's true about much of the Epic era).First, some facts. There is one bonus track on the album - 'Golden Brown' is slotted in between 'European Female' and 'Let's Tango' and the (very) shiny card sleeve, which is nice and thick and strong features the overseas release design with the sabre-toothed panther (look at those cute little canines!) rather than the realistic black leopard we're used to in the UK. I'm sure this extra track and the fangs correspond to a particular release and I reckon one of you lot will remember which one, but I'm assuming it was the US original - I knew once, but it was a long time ago....so anyway, for the collectors, this is a nice little variant we'll all want on our racks. Incidentally, if you want decent PVC sleeves for these and mini Japanese releases, you can get them from a firm called covers33, who are brilliant for record collecting trainspotters like me out there who lovingly curate their archive of discs of the compact and vinyl variety.Now the subjective stuff: I'm listening to the CD now, playing it on my sony bluray, through my 5.1 home theatre kit, mixing it to fake surround. Sounds lovely, of course and a comparison with previous versions to my ear shows greater sonic clarity, deeper bass and a lovely warmth on the vocals, plus the keyboard textures (particularly on 'small world') sound richer. 'Feline' has never sounded bad in any edition, as it is such an open record with a lovely clear mix and no muddiness, largely because of those fabulous Kincaid acoustic guitars. 'Golden Brown' is really crisp - I've never heard the harpsichord sound so percussive - the strings sound closer to an acoustic guitar being hammered than I've heard before and the sound seems much less compressed (I was always disappointed with the mix of 'La Folie', so perhaps a future hi-def issue will reveal limitations of the early versions).Now a general moan all of us in blackland probably feel: where are the 5.1 versions we want of the bands' work? I've been buying surround and hi-def digital versions of classic albums for at least 12 years now and sadly all that seems to get issued these days are prog albums from the 70s, all looked after by Steve Wilson of Porcupine Tree. The Japanese are issuing SHM SACDs in surround (that's Super High Material Super Audio CDs) but we're not seeing any Strangs in this format yet, nor are we getting them in Blu Spec CD2, which, to my ears, is the best CD variant format yet.Come on now, Rat's Lair/band management - it's high time we got 5.1 DTS reissues of the albums - or some of them at least. To me, the best 5.1 albums are those that were most 'live in the studio', so I reckon "Rattus" would be a natural. Given the proggier nature of "The Raven" and "The Meninblack" these albums from what I think of as the groups' 'scientific era' would surely sound superb in surround and prog fans would take to them as much as we punk rockers I reckon.Anyway, enough burbling. Based on a listen to the Culture Factory '"Feline", I think these issues will do until the Japanese get SHMCDs, Blu Spec CD2 or SHMSACDs released. But hopefully we'll see UK 5.1 releases before then on DVDA.