Chvrches - (2020c) Love Is Dead (Unofficial Remaster v1.0 FLAC)

Chvrches - (2020c) Love Is Dead (Unofficial Remaster v1.0 FLAC)


Don't download this if you haven't purchased Chvrches "Love Is Dead".

Like Chvrches albums "The Bones of What You Believe" and "Every Open Eye", Chvrches 2018 album "Love is Dead" is lacking in dynamic range due to the abuse of a brickwall limiter with the gain set too high. After loading into my audio editor, I confirmed Chvrches is yet another victim in the loudness war.

If you are not familiar with the loudness issue, I suggest doing an internet search. In a nut shell, around 1995 a sound engineer made a loud master of a popular band and the music label or band thought it might sell more copies than an album mastered properly. This has been proven false- search Death Magnetic Loudness War. You'll find most fans sought out the good sounding MP3 version that was hacked out of a videogame that contained the whole album mastered properly. Unfortunately, some labels and bands still believe the music sells better when songs are crushed to death (crushed = LOUD = ruined). Some even think crushed sounds better. Present a crushed song and a then a proper mix to anyone on a typical stereo, and most of time they'll prefer the proper mix. Crushed audio leads to ear fatigue- you quickly tire of an album you like and then play something else.

I discovered a velocity based technique (not using EQ) for restoring bass to music that has been damaged by a brickwall limiter. The technique can also be used to create additional bass from existing bass cues.

This remaster may sound a little quiet compared to other recent bricked releases. That's normal when dynamics are restored- just turn up the volume and enjoy it as it was meant to be heard.

This album took longer to remaster than Chvrches first two albums, and now I know why I didn't like the album much- the equalization of the whole album is a screechy mess and varies widely, some tracks needed a bass cut too. It's as if the person(s) EQing were listening through some monitors lacking upper midrange response and had no subwoofer. Either that, or they have hearing damage from not wearing earplugs during concerts.

The first two albums were EQed nicely, primarily by Iain and Martin, and I suspect they checked the mix on their smartphone or personal music player through typical earbuds, and a decent stereo with a subwoofer. If they're as thorough as I suspect they are, they might have a subwoofer on their monitor system, calibrated with music of a similar genre and 80s era.

This CD has much less dynamic range (much louder) than the first two albums, which made it especially challenging. After remastering, Miracle still has some issues with the drums in the louder refrains- they sound like they were clipped during production. My technique can't fix clipped audio.

I also remastered TBOWYB and EOE; look for them.

After remastering with appropriate parametric EQ adjustments and dynamic range fixes, the songs are really pretty good. For album number 4 they need to forget about using any external producers and do the production and mastering themselves (or pick a mastering engineer who's known to not crush audio).

Death Stranding I didn't like at all at first. It has WAY too much energy in the upper midrange. After proper EQ, it's a decent song.

All processing done at 32/44.1. 16bit output file made with 1 bit triangular dither, no noise shaping. Tracks made with CD Wave Editor. Traders Little Helper to fix last song's SBE. FLACs made with Flac Frontend. MP3Tag to add tags.

All but Death Stranding are CD tracks securely ripped using Exact Audio Copy (no error): 16bits 44.1Ks/sec
Death Stranding is from a web download (no errors heard).

songs:
01 - Graffiti (Unofficial Remaster v1.0).flac
02 - Get Out (Unofficial Remaster v1.0).flac
03 - Deliverance (Unofficial Remaster v1.0).flac
04 - My Enemy (feat. Matt Berninger)(Unofficial Remaster v1.0).flac
05 - Forever (Unofficial Remaster v1.0).flac
06 - Never Say Die (Unofficial Remaster v1.0).flac
07 - Miracle (Unofficial Remaster v1.0).flac
08 - Graves (Unofficial Remaster v1.0).flac
09 - Heaven-Hell (Unofficial Remaster v1.0).flac
10 - God's Plan (Unofficial Remaster v1.0).flac
11 - Really Gone (Unofficial Remaster v1.0).flac
12 - ii (Unofficial Remaster v1.0).flac
13 - Wonderland (Unofficial Remaster v1.0).flac
14 - Death Stranding (Unofficial Remaster v1.0).flac

Total time = 54:30

For those that want to burn a CDR, a WAV-CUE is available at (open with 7zip or WinRAR):
https://mega.nz/file/VllTjB4R#2-YawdsTBzmz9ZPZBtqhwjMpvHpw6FazGE385nAf96Y

password (all caps):
ILOVECHVRCHES