Infected Mushroom – The Gathering

A lot has already been written about this reissue, so here's some more but I'll try not to be too repetitive. I'd initially decided I don't need this reissue since I own the original pressing already - but ultimately just wanting to compare the two and the IM store having a Black Friday sale last month led to my purchasing it after all.

Visual impression: The box I could take it or leave it, the artwork is a bit darker than the original vinyl's artwork but bothers me a bit that the box has weird non-square angles on the edges. I think I prefer the original artwork better even though it's just a smaller version in the center with a border, but it works. It really just looks like the drawing was blown up, the artwork isn't any sharper here, just bigger. The splatter records look very nice for the most part, and I seem to have gotten lucky and don't have much of any scratches on mine like some others reported.

Sound quality: I decided to play them without a wet cleaning first. I did not find any obnoxious noises present, a bit of crackle in some parts which I think may go away after a good wet cleaning; it was most pronounced at the end of tracks. A couple sides of the discs were a bit off-center which required a little scraping of the hole to make it play better (sadly par for the course in a lot of new [and 90s] vinyl).  Like most modern vinyl reissues, you really have to crank up your gain. This is also the case with the original pressing mastering, but not quite as much as this. As mentioned by someone else, the tracks are partially mixed, but so are the original vinyls - the only difference is the original faded out smoothly at end of tracks whereas these just cut abruptly. 

When I directly A/B the tracks, the big thing that sticks out to me is that the bass is less powerful and deep and the highs have less clarity.  I guess to be expected with more compression. Some EQ tweaking can get it somewhat close. Unfortunately it can get pretty muddy in certain chaotic parts though where it doesn't as much on the original press. Overall I wouldn't call the sound quality bad by any means. However I must also say the original's mastering isn't that incredible either. If I'm being realistic about it, neither this or the original vinyl press are any significant improvement in sound over the CD. 

Overall: Worth the price? Probably not if you can find a good condition original vinyl, which can sometimes be had for around the same price as this reissue, but they are scarce and may take patience. Ultimately the sound difference isn't huge between the two though. If they had done this as a standard gatefold with a price maybe more like 25% less, it would absolutely be worth it in that case. There's really not much extra here except a box with bigger artwork, color vinyls, and some printed sleeves with the track titles on them, all of which don't add that much. Overall it's a decent but not great reissue. It's too bad they didn't take the opportunity to improve upon the sound quality of the original pressing. 

After a decent wet cleaning the vinyl sounds magnificent. And the mastering is so loud that the music entirely overpowers any physical defects in the pressing. Certainly not a perfect pressing, even a bit off center, but once it's spinning it sounds really fantastic. It's definitely infinitely better than the CD sound. And I agree that the translucent splattered Green, Red and Blue vinyl as well as the box are gorgeous.

Great looking reissue, with multi-color splattered vinyl in full-color innersleeves, packed in a sturdy box with rounded edges.
The cover art is full-faced, and not with a wide border like the original 1999 issue.

The audio quality leaves you with something to desire for. And did not live up to the expectations of this very high priced pre-order.

There's a lot of noise in the silent parts, and there's even a few clicks and pops throughout too.

I've had two copies in hand, that both had scratches on all sides. - in both cases, record 1 were the most affected.
The scratches were caused by some heard yellow'ish debris (production excess?) that were trapped inside the innersleeve.

The music itself sounds like it has been sourced from the 1999 CD issue.
By the end of each track, You will hear the lead-in of the next, without fade-outs, so each side starts and ends abruptly.

When this came out in 1999 i bought it on CD, so I don't know if the vinyl back then also had those lead-ins.

I'm still happy about this reissue, and I'm happy to have this in my vinyl collection. - If I had the 1999 issue, it would probably not have sounded any better anyways 🥳

It's a milestone in the psytrance history, that also helped pave a new path (for better or worse), since it is most likely one of the originators of the Full On genre.

It was a big hit album that quickly sold out in the record shops here i Copenhagen, and many of the tracks were heavily played in the local trance clubs too.

Oh well, when i saw this release getting a repress i knew i had to have it because it is imo their best album very closely followed by Classical, but the price for this new press, too much too much, they knew people wanted this exact release, but the press is medium decent, a lot of noise and clicks at the end of the track before the runout on all sides, the box is nice and ok but not really something.. so if you really love this album, get it like i did but dont expect you get something !