Archive – Call To Arms & Angels

Absolutely their best album for a long time 🤩 and a good mix and excellent pressing, flat and quiet groove (at least my copy).

Mine came without the signed mini print, it was acquired at Amazon. Is this a normal situation?

I have purchased this box set twice, and both times there was a lot of clicking on the first disc (A). It's absolutely sad to hear this. I wrote to the band’s producer, but they didn’t respond. They should care more about the sound quality of the vinyls...

I had some bad luck with this one when I purchased it for the 1st time. My copy was damaged on SIDE B - which is for me the most beautiful track of the whole album and on more sides loud pops and ticks after cleaning. It had overall a lot of background noise spots. So I waited on a new copy because I returned it to the supplier. The vinyls where sticking on the innersleeves. I dont understand why they don't used POLY INNERSLEEVES which is kinda important with an album like this with lots of quiet places in the music. Well.. about the music I can be short: outstanding. Explicit album with beautiful tracks on it. I went to their show in Tivoli, Utrecht NL; and added the outstanding rare vinyl album on discogs which i bought there (UNTITLED). I hope they will continue with creating music like this.

Now it's like some weeks later and I received another copy from another supplier and this one is much better. It still has damage from the innersleeves but it's not giving loud background noise as the copy I received before. So I have a great copy now... which is kinda pure luck. Please be careful with purchasing it; and listen carefully all sides... The music is outstanding...

What I also have to say is that the mastering is kinda low in volume like almost all the Archive albums and sounds a bit hollow on some tracks. Adding some high EQ is helping to get it sounding better. Maybe Archive is just liking this more hollow lower in volume sound... it's possible.

5/5 - Explicit album - one of the best albums from Archive.

the vinyl part of my exemplair sounds fairly deaf where high frequencies are very limited. pity. the rest is very good, thanks to the band that keeps providing strong material.
interesting if the black vinyl version is the same bleak...

Worst album from Archive…this thing should take place on a double LP and they surely could remove half of the track.
I didn’t by the previous one and was hoping this was better but controlling crowds was their last really good album.

The boxset is gorgeous, with a mini-poster, the 3-LP album Call to Arms & Angels, the LP of the soundtrack album Super8 (available only in this specific release), and the CD version of both the albums. The presentation is perfect, but, as other reviews mentioned, the discs are slightly warped (does not affect sound) and have some background noise on LP1 side A, especially in the songs "Surrounded by Ghosts" and "Mr. Daisy", but in the other discs I don't hear any extern noise or crackles whatsoever. Even with these defects, I still think this is the best release of this album.

EDIT: With some liquid cleaning I was able to reduce the background noise on the 1st LP, but it still is hearable.

Wonderful pressing: no pops, no clicks, no surface noise. Only the centre hole on all three LPs is slightly too small.

Le pressage de cette version gold a été fait à la va-vite et il est vraiment très décevant parfois (du souffle et beaucoup de craquements, surtout sur le 1er disque).
Pour un disque de 2022 c’est clairement abusé surtout quand on s’aperçoit du niveau qualitatif de certaines rééditions d’albums réalisées à côté.
Le fan de Archive que je suis est pour le coup vraiment très déçu.

Archive sort quelque peut de la facilité et s’aventure enfin sur de nouvelles terres. Disque exceptionnel par son ampleur et sa créativité. Tout ici est ciselé et précis tout en étant sauvage libre.
Grosse déception néanmoins à l’écoute du vinyle. Si le master est de qualité, le pressage est une honte. En particulier sur les deux premiers disques. Quel gâchis. Deux copies écoutées et rendues au disquaire. Comment peut-on mette en vente, à ce prix là, des disques aussi inaudibles?