featured review #86: Versailles - The Greatest Hits 2007 - 2016

[ShanethVarosa 1209]

 

 

| I couldn't imagine a more amazing return for one of my favorite bands!

 

August was a month of beginnings for our favorite band of Visual Rock Royalty. Hizaki had his solo album come out after being highly anticipated for quite some time and Versailles themselves reunited for a magnificent show on the 7th! This could only be the harbinger of something great to come. 

 

In lieu of coming straight back with an album or EP of new material, the boys decided to do a self-cover album featuring two new songs. This is astounding because most visual rock artists historically have done vaguely remastered versions of their classics and stuck a couple new songs on there as an afterthought. Versailles obviously put a lot of thought and effort into this release and made it quite clear that they had their je ne sais quois back after a 4 year hiatus (and a string of releases that lacked their 'it' factor).

 

In all honesty, the release has left me with a certain level of confusion. First of all, where was this passion on Holy Grail and Versailles? Because honestly I'm not certain I've ever heard such amazing music played as though the artists were just going through the motions as I've heard on those albums. Here, we have the boys playing their old songs gracefully (e.g. Zombie, Aristocrat's Symphony, After Cloudia) and their newer songs played with a passion insurmountable (e.g. Masquerade, Phillia, Destiny). Part of me wants to know what they did in the studio to make these songs sound inexplicably 30x better than the originals, part of me doesn't care because I'm glad I have them back.

 

Even with all of Kamijo's practice writing and pronouncing English words, he still seems to have a hard time. Without Zeus's help, I still would have no idea that he's saying "Raise a living corpse" about halfway through "Zombie." Not to mention "Shout & Bites" has all those growls that seem to have not improved at all. Sure the songs are still bangers either way, but one would think he could've gotten a little more used to the  "mouth feel" of the English language. In any case, none of that is as baffling as how we manage to now have a third unique version of "The Love From A Dead Orchestra." Not as though I'm complaining, however, this song is an unparalleled masterpiece.

 

Finally, after all the confusion, one must admit the new songs are a brilliant example of two sides of the same coin. Versailles' ability to create a head-banging symphonic rock opera like "Melodic Thorn" and a romantic power-ballad that isn't entirely depressing a la "Chandelier." 

 

Opinions may vary on whether they're better together or apart and I think all those opinions have truth to them, but ultimately one must recognize that these musicians are geniuses and really know their way around creating pieces of music that generate discussion.

 

Full marks.

 

 

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[lichtlune 915]

I understand there's nostalgia and the band has just reunited after a four year hiatus but there's no way this album is five stars imo. Especially when not even a single re-recording is better or just as good as  the original. The two new songs weren't anything outstanding either. I give this album a 7.5/10

Edited October 27, 2016 by lichtlune

[Ro plz 1290]

 

 

Yooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

 

MASQUERADE SOUNDS BOSS AS FUCK NIGGAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

 

My interest has peaked. Lemme go peep this album.

Thanks for the review @ShanethVarosa

[Zeus 7997]

4 hours ago, lichtlune said:

I understand there's nostalgia and the band has just reunited after a four year hiatus but there's no way this album is five stars imo. Especially when not even a single re-recording is better or just as good as  the original. The two new songs weren't anything outstanding either. I give this album a 7.5/10

I thought all of the re-recordings were pretty boss as well so my opinion is in the same realm as @ShanethVarosa's. I would argue that in general the older tracks from Lyrical Sympathy and NOBLE benefited more from the beauty treatment than their most recent material. I love what they did with "The Love From a Dead Orchestra", smoothing out those awkward transitions and giving Kamijo's vocals the power they needed. "Zombie" also feels 100x thicker and the interplay between the guitars is sweet. The production quality is like night and day in difference. Other tracks like "DESTINY" and "Serenade" didn't sound all that much different to me and "ASCENDEAD MASTER" even sounded a little off to me, but a lot of it for me is having listened to the original version of these songs so much I expect them to sound a certain way.

I'm sad to hear you couldn't get into it though.

[Peace Heavy mk II 7200]

Looooveeeed "Melodic Thorn." "Chandelier" was satisfactory. I have an appreciation for it being bright and written in a major key, which isn't super common for Versailles' non-ballads, but it also wasn't life changing. Both songs show that they've grown from their respective splinter projects and can come together and continue where they left off with more focus. That being said, I'm excited for their new mini album.

 

Of the remakes, I really liked "Zombie" and "The Love From a Dead Orchestra." I even liked "Shout and Bites," which is interesting because I don't like the original version.

 

The only remake I felt really didn't go well at all was actually "The Revenant Choir." Somehow the English got worse after 10 years of performing it? That's not the reason why I disliked it (I love me some broken English)--it was more that I felt the guitar arrangement had too many weird out-of-key flourishes than the original. Since this is more or less the song that their fanbase associates with them, I kind of feel like they shouldn't have changed much other than recorded it in a fancy studio.

 

[Shmilly 519]

I have very mixed feelings toward this album. I used to be a huge Versailles fan, but somewhere along the line with their hiatus and the disappointment that was Jupiter, I lost some of the wonder that their epic orchestral arrangements used to bring. I can sum up my main disappointment with this album in one reason though, and that's the mixing. While it's really great to hear new recordings of old hits, several times they are more accurately described as misses, ending up with some of the quirks of the original recordings being polished out rather than having had new life breathed into them.

 

Here's my take: the drums have been brought up in the mix, which is always pleasing with metal music; for the most part, the re-recorded vocals are much cleaner, although this is largely redundant on more recent tracks; and on the other hand, the bass has (disappointingly) sometimes been muted more into the background, leaving standout moments in some tracks like DESTINY a little lacking. In addition, for whatever reason the orchestral accompaniment sounds a lot more synthetic than it did before, meaning some of the atmosphere and spectacle is gone from the more dramatic tracks like Love from a Dead Orchestra.

 

While it's great to see new recordings of the older tracks like Shout & Bites, Dead Orchestra and The Revenant Choir, whether they have been significantly improved by being brought up to date on recording quality and mixing is up for debate. Furthermore, while it's nice that everything was clearly recorded to fit a uniform standard, several of the newer tracks feel somewhat unnecessarily renewed. In my opinion, the original versions were plenty good enough and the new ones are just a little too clean, losing some of their magic. I'm particularly disappointed in DESTINY, where the slick bass in the bridge that kind of served to introduce fans to new bassist MASASHI is all but lost in the mix, and the new vocals feel more clean than emotional compared to the original. That said, when the new takes benefit from being re-recorded, they do really shine. Shout & Bites and zombie in particular are great.

 

To round off this 'best album', the two new tracks are sadly rather forgettable; or at least, upon the first couple of listens, they didn't leave me with too much of an impact. It just felt like 'oh, Versailles are back!' This reveals for me a slight danger at the legendary group's return: while it's clear from their forays with solo work and Jupiter that, despite being individually talented musicians, they work best together as Versailles, this best album also reminds us of their signature style. And while more Versailles can only be good news, they need to be careful to remember what about their composition and world-building made them special, rather than playing it safe, when it comes to future releases.

 

As a whole, particularly for new fans, this is a great album. But for someone who has followed Versailles since they first emerged on the scene, as an attempt at producing a 'best' album, it falls a little short.

 

The return of Versailles is like a little kid coming home from school and showing their parents what they made that day. It's cute, but they tried a little too hard.

[Vitne Eveille 65]

I wasn't aware of this until now.  I'm going to go check it out!  

 

In terms of my response to the poll, I usually prefer songs to be left alone, MAYBE remastered.  Then, adding on a couple of brand new songs.  That's the type of Best Of album I love.

 

However, this really depends upon if I was familiar with the band before the re-recordings were done.  Maybe I find a band, listen to the "Best Of" first, come to enjoy that a lot, and then dive into their previous releases and versions....Maybe I end up liking the re-recordings better, simply because that's what I heard first.

 

A lot of times when things are re-recorded though, I feel like they lose some of the original magic.  A very specific case for me was Twisted Sister's re-recording of "Stay Hungry" called "Still Hungry".  While it's interesting to hear them re-recorded, I really liked the originals better.  There's something about the way those sounded at the time when they were recorded.  Wild, uninhibited.  But the newer versions sound more polished and less "alive."

[Zeus 7997]

1 hour ago, Vitne Eveille said:

I wasn't aware of this until now.  I'm going to go check it out!  

 

In terms of my response to the poll, I usually prefer songs to be left alone, MAYBE remastered.  Then, adding on a couple of brand new songs.  That's the type of Best Of album I love.

 

However, this really depends upon if I was familiar with the band before the re-recordings were done.  Maybe I find a band, listen to the "Best Of" first, come to enjoy that a lot, and then dive into their previous releases and versions....Maybe I end up liking the re-recordings better, simply because that's what I heard first.

 

A lot of times when things are re-recorded though, I feel like they lose some of the original magic.  A very specific case for me was Twisted Sister's re-recording of "Stay Hungry" called "Still Hungry".  While it's interesting to hear them re-recorded, I really liked the originals better.  There's something about the way those sounded at the time when they were recorded.  Wild, uninhibited.  But the newer versions sound more polished and less "alive."

I would be interested in your thoughts after you've sat on this album for a while. I tend to feel similarly to you about a lot of aspects of re-recording, especially the "point in time" aspect that makes some tracks magical. Lightning doesn't always strike twice for a band. With this album I felt way differently after a few listens since the way Versailles chose to re-record this album preserved the magic for the most part. A lot of these new tracks I like better than the originals and there's only a few aspects to some tracks I don't like. I don't know how Versailles managed to do it , but they did.