XTC – Oranges & Lemons

"XTC now bring the psychedelic past with the style of the late 1980s Years together: exuberant, saturated with effects, arrangements, big Melodies." (Good Times, December 2020/January 2021)
Performance 7
Repertoirevalue 7
Sound and remaster 10

Which version is better, this or the ape house reissue?

Incredible pressing! The music just jumps out of the speakers with a vibrancy that sounds like a band playing in your living room.

Please note this CD has pre-emphasis. Careful when archiving your back-up.

I only wish the headers for each section were accurate. No reference to the 192kHz files.

Uno de los vinilos que mejor suenan de mi colección, costo lo suyo no es precisamente barato estando en Argentina, pero el sonido y la presentación del disco lo vale realmente. En mi top 25 personal.

Like a lot of others, I never really liked the sound of this record (fans blamed Paul Fox's production) but this vinyl copy is more detailed and easier on my ears than the CD and stands as a true improvement IMO. Great to have the original mix as well.

Great band and one of their great albums. The sound of this release is amazingly good and a vast improvement compared to my 1989 vinyl copy of this album. I also have it on a cd and I have always liked it for the great songs. Not necessarily for the sound which I have felt could have been done a whole lot better to make the album justice. When i got the Lp version from -89 I missed an important sound effect that, compared to my cd release, suddenly had disappeared from "King for a day" and that minor difference made me feel that song hopelessly hard to listen to on the vinyl. On this release it's where it needs to be! I'm all about the vinyls these days and hoped this new release would be up to par with my high expectations. The 200 g release sounds way better than both my cd and the -89 vinyl. Much more bottom and not like someone has winded the treble button up on 10. This is how it should have sounded from the beginning. The pressing is perfect and I give this audiophile release my highest recommendations.

Some of the bands best songs on this album, the beautiful ‘chalkhills..’ is a stop you in your tracks song, ‘mayor of simpleton’ has one of the best bass lines you’ll ever hear in a song (bar ‘enchanted’ by prefab) a great album.

This is an amazing, high quality pressing with incredible sound quality. As others have stated, this pressing is quiet. I never noticed some of the sounds on my CD copy of this album as I have heard on this pressing. Highly recommended release from Ape House.