New Release Round-Up 11-19-21

U2 - Achtung Baby: 30th Anniversary Edition - Island
A limited-edition black vinyl release of the Grammy-award winning U2 album Achtung Baby, to celebrate its 30^th Anniversary. Produced by Daniel Lanois and Brian Eno, and recorded between Berlin’s Hansa Studios and various locations in Dublin, Achtung Baby was released to critical acclaim in 1991 & is regarded as one of U2’s most seminal albums. The album featured five singles: ‘The Fly’, ‘Mysterious Ways’, ‘One’, ‘Even Better Than The Real Thing’ and ‘Who’s Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses’.

Kiss - Destroyer: 45th Anniversary Edition - UMe
In 1976, KISS dropped the bombshell on the world being DESTROYER, an album that originally received resistance from fans due to the band exploring a new sound and has long become the quintessential and all-time best selling KISS studio album. Exploding with concert staples and KISS Army favorites like “Detroit Rock City,” “Shout It OutLoud,” and “God Of Thunder” – the album’s new sounds came from the softer side of songs like “Do You Love Me?,”and songs heavy with orchestral arrangements including “Great Expectations” and their surprise hit single “Beth.” For the 45th anniversary, UMe is releasing the most comprehensive Super Deluxe Edition 4CD + Blu-ray Audio boxset that will melt the KISS Army’s minds. The original album on CD 1 is newly remastered by Abbey Road Mastering, CD 2 features 15 demos from Paul Stanley’s and Gene Simmons’s personal archives – 9 of which are unreleased. CD 3 loads up with studio outtakes, alternate versions / mixes and single edits – most notably a brand-new stripped-down mix for “Beth (Acoustic Mix)” where we found the acoustic guitar stems recorded for the entire song but originally only used in the last several closing notes of the song on the album. CD 4 features a ripping performance from the band’s visit to Paris France at the L’Olympia on May 22, 1976. Steven Wilson was brought in to create a first-ever Dolby Atmos and 5.1 surround mix of the original studio album plus 2 bonus tracks “Beth (Acoustic Mix)” and “Sweet Pain (Original Guitar Solo)” the latter featuring Ace Frehley’s original recorded guitar solo that was not released on the studio album (this track is available on the 2012 Destroyer: Resurrected project.) Packaging features a lift top-style box loaded with so much ephemera even KISS fans may need to seek medical advice upon receiving this boxset. Also available Deluxe 2CD and Deluxe 2LP.

Yusuf / Cat Stevens - Teaser And The Firecat: 50th Anniversary - A&M
Yusuf / Cat Stevens celebrates 1971's landmark album with this 4CD, Blu-ray, 2LP, and 7" set in a rigid clamshell box. It includes the 50th Anniversary remaster of the album on CD/Blu-ray HD Audio completed at Abbey Road by the original producer, Paul Samwell-Smith. Featuring 41 previously unreleased demos, sessions, live tracks, and 21 unreleased TV performances. Plus, an illustrated 108-pg essay book, a 44-pg replica of the original "Teaser And The Firecat" book, and a 7" single of "Moonshadow." Also available Super Deluxe 4CD/Blu-ray Box Set, Deluxe 2CD and LP & CD.

Andy Shauf - Wilds - ANTI
Few artists are storytellers as deft and disarmingly observational as Andy Shauf. The Toronto-based, Saskatchewan-raised musician’s songs unfold like short fiction: they’re densely layered with colorful characters and a rich emotional depth. Like he’s done throughout his career, Shauf wrote, performed, arranged, and produced every song on his new album Wilds at his studio space in the west end of Toronto.  Over the course of a year-and-a-half, Shauf had written more than 50 songs, and pared down this massive body of work, into a single album’s worth of material, which became 2020’s highly acclaimed The Neon Skyline album. These songs focused on a theme by intertwining the individual characters stories of a group of friends who gathered for one night at the same local bar. Wilds includes songs from those same writing sessions, that did not fit into the Skyline storyline and had their own singular identity apart from that album, though he does revisit with his old friends Judy and Jeremy in this outing.