Christian Death - Catastrophe Ballet

This review is about the Season of Mist compact disc US reissue of Catastrophe Ballet, and not the album and its songs (which I very much love).

I've just received my copy of this release, and although the cover sticker says "carefully restored original artwork", it's not quite so. To begin with the zoomed-in, washed-out cover, with the annoying (R) symbol next to the band's name that never appeared in the original Invitation Au Suicide LP.

Secondly, the "cross n' bones" logo (that appeared only from "The Scriptures" album on, here in its rather ugly, new metalized form) is also featured in the cover spine and printed onto the disc - it also never appeared in the "original artwork". Why not using the surrealistic image that appeared in the original vinyl label? Rozz Williams' pic of the original IAS booklet is here, but we have one of Valor as well that was not in that album. Some other pics of Gitane, David and Constance would be a fair treat as well, giving it a better feel of a work of a "band" rather than solely "Valor and Rozz"'s thing.

It's nice though that for the first time we have all the stories, images and lyrics once published in the rare 1st french LP release, now in the CD booklet. Although we still see a few misspells here and there (already at the beginning of the "Awake at the Wall" lyrics), it's a huge improvement in comparison to the Cleopatra/Candlelight releases, with their sea of misprints (not to mention shifted tracks, cropped songs and plain bad final artwork). We also finally see all musicians' names listed (hooray!), as well as accurate songwriting credits.

As for the audio, it was indeed done a good job in the remastering of the original 10 tracks. It is sounding loud and clear and pairs up with the Italian Contempo release "A Catastrophe Ballet with Rhapsody of Youth and Rain" as well as the German Normal disc, now rarities even in sites like eBay. It was with great expectation and excitement that I first heard that this re-release would feature a bonus, unreleased track with Rozz on vocals. "Beneath His Widow", although sung by Rozz, sounds completely misplaced in this album, as the instrumentals were totally newly recorded by Valor, sounding like something out of "American Inquisition". Whereas it would seem more fitting to be placed by the end of the record, it appears as track 1 in the CD.

Despite its few shortcomings, it's one of the best releases of Catastrophe Ballet on compact disc so far, and worth having by any Christian Death fan.

This edition by Contempo (as well as the German Jungle one) has probably the best sound of all versions released so far. Although the remasters released by Cleopatra and Candlelight are loud and clear, they have several flaws (both releases clip some final seconds of "Awake at the Wall" and two tracks are shifted in the Candlelight release - "This Glass House" is before "Cervix Couch"). Lyrics for "The Blue Hour" are incomplete in the CD booklet.