Omnivore Recordings' latest deluxe release, Big Star Complete Third, is out and getting some big attention. Amidst the praise for the overall album and the herculean task that the team at Omnivore took on to produce this package, several critics are noticing the mastering and restoration.
"Michael Graves has remastered all three discs to great effect." - The Second Disc
"Thanks to Michael Graves' audio restoration, those nuances come through with largely impeccable clarity." - All About Jazz
"The sound is remarkable (the 1993 Rykodisc release always sounded a little thin and tinny) and the thread of the songs is taut and tight so that, to me, the coherency that was lacking is now there. Disc 3 is the presentation of the final mixes and sounds much cleaner, crisper and buoyant here than before." - Pop Dose
"Massive praise must be heaped on Cheryl Pawelski, Adam Hill, and Michael Graves for wrangling this material into sequence and restoring it in such as a way that listening to this set feels like you're hearing so much for the first time."
"The success of Complete Third really hinges not on how much material the folks at Omnivore Recordings managed to dig up but, instead, by how they made Third sound. The verdict is, quite simply, that you've never heard the album like this before. Whatever Hill and Graves did to clean up these recordings might be the stuff of alchemy 'cause I very nearly ran my car off the road while I got transfixed by how sharp and clear album tracks like "Blue Moon" and "Take Care" now sounded."
"Disc 3 is so fundamentally sharper than any you've heard and loved before that I can say that you should offer up a massive thanks to these folks for attempting this." - A Pessimist Is Never Dissapointed