[holden]

Some albums certainly benefit from a remaster and I'm usually all for that. The fact that "Brown" LP was considered fine as-is is...something. So the re-release is really about combining all the peripherals for 1) fans that haven't got it all, 2) completists who want something new, be it a live cd, harder to find track, or even just the booklet. And that's fine. Underworld's three re-release box sets (Dubno, STITI, Beacoup Fish) had a bunch of extra demos, which was fantastic, but we, as superfanz still found ways to complain about it - e.g. stuff we already had on singles, EPs, remixes. It's new for many, old news for some.

Orbital does, in my opinion, seem to be mining the nostalgia/legacy route a lot lately, what with Green, Brown boxes, EPS (Omen, Chime, Lush, III, Midnight/Choice, Belfast), the 30Something re-edits/remix collection. I don't doubt they'll continue the trend with Snivilization...maybe even In Sides, since their first four are considered classics of the genre, and later releases get a bit more divisive.

(i'd rank 'em as such:
1. Brown, In Sides
2. Snivilization, The Middle Of Nowhere
3. Green, The Altogether, Blue, Wonky, Monsters Exist, Optical Delusion
Nothing bad, just preference and the later stuff is still mostly good in my mind, if a bit of retreads (Blue, Wonky), or oddball (The Altogether, Phil's contributions to Optical Delusion), or solid but pretty unsurprising (Monsters, Paul's tracks on Optical Delusion). Green is a collection of singles and sounds dated, whereas the rest feel cohesive and hold up well through time and space and loops of that nature!)