Is it just me or do the later Jacknife Lee-produced albums have a less-clear, more-garbled, compressed sound than albums from the Litt and McCarthy projects?
Jacknife Lee and mastering engineer Ted Jensen pushed the levels right up to the digital ceiling (0 dBFS) on Accelerate. I did not notice this as much on Collapse Into Now.
Accelerate is widely considered one of the most flagrant, textbook casualties of the late-2000s Loudness War.
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It’s not just you. Both Accelerate and Collapse into Now exhibit full compliance and adoption of the egregious loudness war of the noughties. It’s so incongruous to hear the band’s dynamics and depth of field stripped away on these last two records, but I’m frequently astonished how many fans seem OK with it. I am admittedly someone who feels quite strongly about the sound of records and it’s inextricably intwined with my emotional connection to any given piece. To that end the last two leave me entirely cold, save a few standout moments. I have always questioned their decision to work with Lee, every band he works with seem to have all their idiosyncrasies stamped out in favour of unmusical cookie cutter hyper compression. Honestly he’s one the most over rated producers of the modern era in my opinion, but I fully respect that’s just my feeling and many people love those albums
I’m not much of an audiophile but I followed discussions of “the Loudness Wars” here and elsewhere. It was especially noticeable on Live at the Olympia. I would go to crank it up but couldn’t because it would start to distort.
Was talking about Rush in a different thread; their 2002 album Vapor Trails was another victim of the Loudness War. They actually ended up rereleasing it fully remixed in 2013; the remixes sound much better.
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I think the sound somewhat works for ACCELERATE which comes across either a noisier punk aesthetic, but, COLLAPSE INTO NOW could benefit from an uncompressed remix.
