Track Listing

1. Cherry Coloured Funk
2. Pitch The Baby
3. Iceblink Luck
4. Fifty Fifty Clown
5. Heaven Or Las Vegas
6. I Wear Your Ring
7. Fotzepolitic
8. Wolf In The Breast
9. Road River And Rail
10. Frou Frou Foxes In Midsummer Fires

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #42749 in Music
• Published on: 2004
• Released on: 2003-06-03
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: Original recording reissued, Original recording remastered
• Dimensions: .20 pounds

Album Description
2003 4AD reissue of 1990 album remastered by guitarist Robin Guthrie.

Customer Reviews

Now THIS is a remaster!
After being disappointed in the remastered version of Blue Bell Knoll, I was having trouble deciding whether to purchase another in the Twins' new remaster series. After I tentatively gave HOLV a shot, I was flabbergasted. The sound has come alive! What was previously leaden and muffled has been set free into the sparkling ether. And keep in mind-- I had never considered the production on the original album to be lacking-- maybe a tad overreacting to the bright sound of Blue Bell Knoll two years previous, but rich, full and melodic nonetheless. What a difference thirteen years makes! It's like listening to a brand new release. The sound is no longer so midrange-heavy; the instruments have been lifted and separated just enough to delineate them, while preserving the gauziness of the original. The vocals have a newfound space and importance, as if Elizabeth just got through clearing her throat. And the bass! Chunkier, crunchier, it actually makes my Grados pulsate during 'Cherry-coloured Funk'. This newfound clarity is even more apparent on 'Fifty-fifty Clown', which must be one of the most timelessly futuristic pop songs ever produced. It shimmers more forcefully now, chugs along more insistently, and leaves you wanting more. It's amazing how a good remaster can change your feelings about a song; I had never been a huge fan of the title track, but now I have rediscovered it--it's more balanced, less honk-y. I can honestly recommend this remaster as a must-have for real Cocteau Twins fans, it's that much better. One of the richest, most luxurious albums ever. *** Oh, and fellow Twins fans/reviewers: hey! don't be blithely glossing over the song titles. Elizabeth worked too hard on them for you to dismissively call them "Track 1" or "Track 9". Sheesh. Learn them and use them-- they're windows into the songs themselves. They cross-reference each other and provide a huge chunk of the only insight into Elizabeth's lyrics that exists. Show some respect!

Jury still out
HOLV is one of my favorite albums of all time. When I found out that remastered were being issued, I was excited and also a little perplexed. There are CT albums with which I could find some (minor) production faults, but HOLV was never among them. However, my copy was aging and beginning to show signs of the dreaded pinhole dropouts, I figured I could not go wrong by replacing the older version with the remastered. The production on the remastered version is quite similar to that on the original version, and i doubt that most casual CT fans or listeners could tell the difference. However, unlike my experience with the remastered BBK album, I found that some of the subtle differences on HOLV actually were detrimental to parts of the orginial album that I had liked. The bass line in Iceblink Luck (3rd track for those of you who, like me, perpetually ignore the song titles) is more subdued in the chorus. Road River and Rail (9th track) begins to fade out at the very last line, whereas the original did not. And Pitch the Baby (2nd track) is less lush than the original, with more separation between the vocals and background music. Overall, the latter is the major difference in production on the remaster: the instruments are somewhat brighter and more separated, as they are on the remastered BBK. But whereas I felt that worked quite well on BBK, I was a bit disappointed with how this affected HOLV. If you have never heard HOLV in its original format, I think you'll find this remastered version to be brilliant and you'll probably love it. But for those of us who have listened to the original version more times than Gene Simmons has had sex, the differences may take some getting used to. One caveat: I have yet to listen to this album through headphones, so there may be more subtle, positive differences that I have not yet picked up on.

I prefer the original CD
What IS it about the shrill highs and boomy lows of so many remasters that enamors listeners? This is my favorite Cocteau Twins album, but I was profoundly disappointed in the remastered version. I will keep my beloved 1990 original with its wonderful mid-ranges (and PLENTY enough of high and low frequencies) in my library....and donate the remaster version I recently bought to my local library. By the way, even with a version I don't much like, the title cut still brings tears to my eyes after all these years.