Please post your thoughts and comments on this brand new deluxe edition of the classic album "Bridge of Sighs" by Robin Trower.
Celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, this new deluxe edition contains the first ever remixes of the album in both 5.1 surround and Dolby Atmos.
10's all around for me.
I thought "Day of the Eagle" got it started a tiny bit weak, but it only gets better from here, mix and sound wise.
If you are a fan of Robin Trower and his seminal debut solo album, have an Atmos system, I believe you can't go wrong. (I have not listened to the full album in other than Atmos so YMMV)
The packaging is superb. The extra's are nice. Someone put some thought into this and it shows. After some crappy mixed CD's of his other work over the years I am gratified beyond measure with this release.
At first listen I gave it an 8, though with subsequent listens this could go higher. We all hope to be blown away from the get-go, but this didn’t happen. The first track, as others have noted is underwhelming. That alone precludes a score of a perfect 10. A 10 for me would require every track to sound better in surround than stereo and that is simply not the case for Day of the Eagle. It does however get much better! I need more time to assess if my expectations for one of my all-time favourite albums was too high and if I was too distracted by its very unusual mix.
More and more atmos releases are at least 9.1.6. My system is 9.1.4 so I can say Bridge of Sighs was at least that. Some album mixes have subtle enhancements in the wides and others contain very discreet and pertinent elements. Not only was BoS in the latter category, the main guitar was placed in the wide channels on every track! The LCR spread was most often exclusively bass and drums. This effected to showcase Dewar’s fine bass skills! There were very fine moments on Little Bit of Sympathy when Isadore’s drums expanded from the fronts into the wides providing a wall of intricate percussion! There were times when the rears had more content than the side surrounds. On a few occasions the rears had nothing but vocals, sometimes interjected with a brief burst of overdubbed rhythm guitar. I don’t know if Dewar’s vocals were originally double-tracked, but they could be heard simultaneously emanating from different surrounds, and they weren’t just reverbed, but succinctly different.
Although the mix was unorthodox, it wasn’t random. Each element was carefully considered. Yes, there were brief moments when it felt like an all-channel stereo, but that simply isn’t the case. While overall it’s a static mix, the side, rear and height channels are employed differently depending on what was happening at the time.
So, while I was initially distracted by the mix, it wasn’t a distractive mix, if that makes sense. While we all enjoy listening to our favourites at loud volume the uniqueness of how the elements were placed goes away the louder I play it. And Robin Trower at reference volume levels is always a good thing!
