Art Of Noise* ‎– Into Battle With The Art Of Noise

The latest addition to ZTT/Salvo's Element Series (ELEMENT 16) is the first of Art of Noise's Deluxe Edition re-issues. Into Battle With The Art Of Noise was never an album, until now! The original was an extended play 12" (ZTIS 100) with a shorter play on cassette (CTIS 100), that replaced the 10 minute version of Moments In Love with the 5 minute one.

This 2011 album edition includes the aforementioned cassette version with Worship, the original unreleased debut album, that would later get re-worked and be released as (Who's Afraid Of?) The Art Of Noise! (ZTT IQ2).
Into Battle... acts as episode one in an Art of Noise rebooted series of albums, but also as a prequel to what has gone before, along with being an alternative version of the 1986 CD compilation "Daft" (ZCIQ 2) and condensed version of the 2006 box set And What Have You Done With My Body, God? (ZTT201CD).

As a fan I never really felt that "Daft" worked as the tracks taken from Into Battle... didn't really fit that well together with the material taken from (Who's Afraid Of?)... as the latter was a more structured body of work. This CD hits the mark with all of the tracks blending in perfectly together, giving the listener a chance to hear what Art of Noise may have sounded like if they hadn't have restructed the material for their released debut long player.

After 27 years, fans can now get to listen to the original version of what many call the definitive Art of Noise album!

So the seminal debut release from The Art of Noise gets another re-release! This is the fifth time I've bought this! First on vinyl, then it was included in the compilation Daft (minus the original version of Beat Box) then with the release on Repertoire Records (albeit with the incorrect Diversion One version of Beat Box), then it was included in the AWHYDWMBG collection, and finally here it is remastered and expanded.

Niggles -

It sounds like a good remaster; clearer, punchier and brighter. However, like the version included in AWHYDWMBG - this has the cassette version of Moments in Love... It's a nice edit from the full version included on the original vinyl release (and the following album Who's Afraid of...), however it is marred by tape slip distortion in a number of places (particularly in the opening bars). It would have been nice to have the full version included in the expanded section of the disc.

Another slight niggle is the transition between `Flesh in Armour' and `Comes And Goes' - on the original release (and the version included in Daft) there is no gap, here there is delay added to the last orchestral stab of `Flesh in Armour', followed by around 2 seconds of silence, then in comes `Comes and Goes'. It actually works quite well, but not true to the original release, which is a shame as that is the record that I grew up with.

The last niggle is that most of the expanded section is either renamed or lifted from sections of AWHYDWMBG, and the rest is from Who's Afraid of... and also what sounds like the 7" edit of Close (To The Edit).

I give this release a full 5 stars because of the innovation of the original material, however it seems to me that this is a slightly missed opportunity to celebrate an absolute classic, an opportunity that was used instead to cash in on all the AON fans out there. All that said, it's nice to have this masterpiece remastered. If ZTT remaster Who's Afraid of... in the near future I wouldn't think twice about ordering it, but I wouldn't bother expecting much from any expanded sections.