Going with a “9”.
Vienna was my favorite surround release of 2020, so I’ve been waiting for this with bated breath ever since. I’m not disappointed with the results, Steven Wilson’s remixes in both stereo & 5.1 are pretty much exactly what I was hoping for. One thing I never liked about the original LP is the dark sound, so I’m glad that SW has gone in and brightened up the rhythm guitars - it gives the album a more visceral, immediate feel. That said there are a few spots where I think he pushed the guitars a little too far forward (like at the end of “The Thin Wall”), but its nitpicking given the vast increase in clarity and ‘punch’ that the remix affords.
The pronounced front-to-back seperation and hard-panning in
Vienna's 5.1 almost reminded me of a '70s quad mix, in the best way possible. This isn't quite as extreme to my ears, but there are a lot of instruments partially or entirely isolated in the rear speakers. It’s usually synths and backing vocals back there, plus the occasional guitar stab. “Stranger Within” in surround is just as crazy as you’d hope, with vocal echoes and synths trading off all around the room. Even the relatively-sparse “Your Name…” sounds massive and even more haunting in surround.
On further listens, I picked up on a lot of cool subtle things he’s done with time-based effects like reverb and delay in the surround field. In the beginning of “We Stand Alone”, the pounding bass synth is dry upfront while its delay pans left-to-right in the rears. Vocals and some synth parts are often solo’d dry in the center speaker, while their stereo reverbs and/or delays are placed in the rears.
There are some fun passages involving motion too, like the rhythm guitar stabs at the end of “We Stand Alone” circling the room while the synth stays in the rears. The oscillating synth solos midway through “The Thin Wall” shift between the center and rears to great effect. The main melody throughout “Stranger Within'' is deconstructed in a really interesting way, with the synths in the rear and the electric violin (or is it another synth?) isolated in the center speaker.
A few other observations:
- I thought the dry vocals in the center speaker got kind of veiled during some of the busier passages, but I suppose that’s system-dependent. I don't mind having to boost the center 2-3 dB.
- The two upmixes are pretty convincing! I thought "The Voice" fared a bit better than "I Remember..." in terms of channel separation. That said, they of course still exhibit the original mix aesthetic (darker, wetter sound) so they don't quite blend in seamlessly with the remixes. I'm really glad this was done though, as the remixed stereo playlist omits those two songs completely.
- As with Vienna, the ‘rear center’ position is used to great effect throughout the album for elements such as the main synth part in “Accent On Youth”
- “We Stand Alone” - during the chorus after the extended instrumental (starting at around 3:25), there’s a higher-register harmony vocal that’s audible in the new stereo mix but seems to be missing entirely from the surround. I wonder what happened there?
- “Stranger Within” - I was expecting the vocals starting at 3:08 (“standing in the corner with your back to the wall…”) to move around the room (since they pan left and right in both stereo mixes), but they’re mostly pinned to the center speaker with Midge switched to the rears for one line.
- “Rage In Eden” - the ending where the entire track gradually collapses into telephone EQ'd mono is really cool in surround, it first moves directly behind your head and then fades from the front speakers into the center before abruptly cutting off.
- I’m disappointed to find that the live set on CDs 4&5 is brickwalled, as the St. Albans 1980 recording in the the Vienna box was fully-dynamic.
I hope they end up doing similar sets for
Quartet and especially
Lament!
