BOC Remastered?

[John A Swartz]

Craig is correct - the 3 CD set of the 1st 3 albums is just a repackaging,
no re-mastering.  If you don't have the albums yet, this may be a way to
get them cheaper than individually, but if you already have them, this is
nothing new.

Craig also queries about the German compilation CD *The Reaper - Best of*.

I have this CD, and prior to *Workshop of the Telescopes*, it was the
best BOC compilation out there (but a European release, so not readily
available in the U.S.).  It has the faded-out version of "White Flags",
so it's not the "rare" one.  On a side-note to that, other than the
fact that the non-fadeout version of "White Flags" doesn't fade-out,
there really is nothing else extraordinary about the track.  It's just
that some of us collectors have to have everything...

Anyways, there's really nothing
new on the *Reaper - Best of* although there is presumably a bit of
remastering/noise-reduction on about 6 of the tracks, but nothing that
really caught my ears as being a major improvement.  Also, due I believe
to the length of music on the CD (aproaching 77 minutes I belive), the
last song (In the Presence of Another World) is cut off before the final
"Your Master" section - it ends with Eric singing "There is no
emptiness..." and the guitar picking coming to as stop - the song has
a natural pause there that on *Imaginos* picks up with the choral singing
"Your -- Ma -- ster...", but the track on this compilation cuts off before
you get to that part (it's done in a way that if you didn't know the
song, you probably wouldn't suspect this was an edit).

John