dEUS ‎– Worst Case Scenario

The original CD sleeve does look beautiful however this sleeve is a stretched version of that sleeve with low resolution, poor colour definition and gaudy colour blends which looks amateurish, especially on the rear sleeve.

It has only been played once before and is still in a near mint condition (was bought new).

The quiet parts of Side A are spoiled by a lot of what appears to be surface noise - pops and clicks - which should not be present in a new copy. Upon checking the record and grooves, it's absolutely perfectly clean. It is only the start of Side A that seems to suffer this. It seems that this record was mastered from a vinyl source which itself had been well played, the fault with the noise seems to be the source recording.

The noise is apparent through the loudest parts of Suds and Soda but cannot be heard so much through the rest of the record which indicates the source LP was played for just that track and the intro.

The low end/bass on the record is quite punchy and well developed with a fairly decent mid range and a very poor high end, which is not good for a band like dEUS. You want to hear the details...sadly the record lacks fidelity to the audiophile pressing and although sounds passable is nowhere near as good as the CD version which itself is nowhere near as good as the audiophile vinyl pressing. At times the record sounds as though it has been mastered from a lossy vinyl rip of the original dEUS Audiophile record. I'm sure if you find the inevitable high quality vinyl flac rip, the noise and crackle will be present on the file but the issues of poor treble/high end and lack of definition in the mid range would not be present.

In my view, the sound is competent and something you can live with but not competent enough to favour this over the CD - particularly the anniversary edition - and if you're a connoisseur or if you can afford it, the Audiophile vinyl edition would be the better choice.

This is a unoffical release on vinyl of the first album!
Full colour cardboard sleeve looks beautiful, but is very tin.
There is a white tin inner sleeve.

They officaly released this album in 1994 and was pressed on ltd. copies.
It hard to find in mint condition.

This is a perfect alternative for them how have the original pressing and want to play it without spoiling the original.

It's also a perfect alternative for them how doesn't have a lot of money and want this record.

If you want this, buy it! If you don't want it, don't buy it.
If you have a lot of money, buy the original!

While I'm not a particular dEUS fan (electronic music mostly rocks my world, see) I had a dream set to this sound track last night... And so this morning I found myself really wanting to write a review about this album. Why? Well, partly because it affected me so deeply upon first listening to it that I've never been able to get it out of my mind... But mainly because it's one of the most creative free-sliding musical excursions that I've ever had the chance (and pleasure) of listening to!!!

It was a friend, totally out of the blue, who recommended it to me in 2004 when we were record shopping in Glastonbury town, Somerset, in the only record shop worth visiting... Tor Records. As he knew of my heavily biased electronic, jazz and folk preferences, he was doing his best to bend my keen interest in eclectic music styles so that I might consider other genres of creatively imagined scoring. And to be honest, I was somewhat surprised with his recommendation when he pulled out this dEUS album from the rock section. Having heard some of dEUS's previous stuff, I had never been impressed enough remember any of their works. But low and behold, one listen to this album... And I was left gob smacked at the sheer genius of it!!!

Released back in 1994, this is a deeply personal/insightful/figurative simile for modern day living, all aspects of which are interwoven into each other with as much raw energy, imagination and sensibility as any rock band should muster in their work. To add to that, this energy and rawness is beautifully countered by several melancholic interludes, as well as some progressively poignant remorse, and epic melodic tinglings that span the length of its running time. Right from the outset, it harks that this is going to be an abstract journey into the minds, memories and aesthetics of dEUS themselves... "Listen to me", spoken in French, reveals their European origins (themselves being from Belgium) among other things... While other songs admit to weak and feeble distractions that we can get lost in i.e. break-ups, binging, etc... So once I started listening, I couldn't stop.

What really sets this album so apart from other dEUS releases is the way in which they use word play to fuse together a never ending flow of ideas into a seamless blend of stories and abstracted analogies. "Jigsaw You" depicts rather beautifully the throw away nature of our thoughts, most of which seem to be single serving entities born from proximity infatuations and memetic proneness... One pop and it's gone, unusable and unsuitable for the never-ending new experiences and expressions that continue past memories into the present moment. "Right As Rain" wouldn't be out of place in a Wild Western mining town; filled with remorse about the cheap thrills and rides we loose ourselves in while gallivanting through the saloons of good-times, we always find that excuse for our pointless behaviour, cantillating that we do so to have lived as best as we could, absolving all the pain that we've felt with happiness and hedonism... Devoid of any certain meaning, yet we still do what we do without question, seeing other doing so and copying them all too easily. But in between all the melancholic nodes, it still carries enough light heartedness to balance these deep insights and almost heavy regrets with a loosened seriousness. While "Via" lifts the heart and makes me shake my body and soul to it musical unfolding... But what's the point describing what it means/does to me... It'll no doubt reveal new meanings from someone else's point of view.

Along with clear creative mixing and production, it's set in a style that could almost be likened to Steely Dan's own crystal productions... Instruments separating in the mix beautifully, giving space and feeling for their ideas to breath and flow... Yes... Flow! That's what it does... This album's flow demonstrates the pure poetry behind the arrangement of their ideas into creative meanderings that talk to me on so many levels! This is the genius of dEUS... Writing songs so that they languidly coalesced into one another like interdependent systems of mindful musings...

No less than an epic journey, this album could easily be my sound track to life... This is dEUS at the pinnacle of their creative powers! Lively and tender, yet abstract and painful, its meanings shift with your place in time... Yet it always manages to carry across that poignant power it had when you first heard it. A truly timeless wonder! dEUS... Here's to the genius of your one album!