Thought I'd post the section of the book that deals with the bad sound on that album!
“It didn’t sound that good,” sighs John. “I really don’t know why, but maybe it was just our inexperience. We all played the music to the best of our ability. There were a lot of notes, orchestration and instrumentation going on, and we were an inexperienced band. The keyboards were inexpensive, and it’s not like we had state of the art stuff. We just had to work with what we had.”
“Terry is an amazing producer and mixer and he has an incredible track record,” argues Mike. “But that was probably the worst produced album he has ever made. Everything else he has done – like the albums he made later with Pantera, Soundgarden or White Zombie – sounds great. I think it was the limited budget and perhaps because we had keyboards in our band which was something he wasn’t used to. Maybe that compromised the mix as he was working with an instrument he wasn’t used to. I don’t know. Obviously the production and the mix sounds low budget and didn’t do the album justice.”
Charlie Dominici: “That album reminds me of a powerful animal that’s stuck in a cage. Mainly because of the production, but also the time restrictions of getting it all done in three weeks, and the limitations of the producer himself. My opinion is that Terry Date had a tin ear. The highs are a little trashy and the lows aren’t very fat, and the way he buried my voice? He made it sound like I was two inches tall. Other than that, I really feel the playing and writing, though not necessarily the vocals, was the real essence of the band.”
David Prater, who would produce two of the band's later albums, was also scathing of the album’s sound. “I didn’t hear their first record until long after I met them. But when I finally did I was gob-smacked by how bad it sounded,” he says. “I mean it’s several degrees out of phase in the stereo soundstage. Terry Date was a very
fashionable producer at the time, but this record didn’t bolster his pedigree. I think he just became indifferent and stopped caring. It sounds like they were mixing by committee: ‘Turn my bass up!’, ‘No, you’re too loud!’, ‘No I’m not!’. Wasn’t it Churchill who once said, ‘A dromedary is a camel designed by committee?’”
In hindsight, Terry Date is in open agreement that the record suffered as a result of the time and financial constraints imposed on the band by their record label, but maintains he is still proud of the album and what it ultimately achieved.
“You can’t really work that fast and be particular about the sounds,” he says. “At the time, I was all wide-eyed and innocent anyway and just happy to go and rip the record without worrying about the consequences. It’s all about the music in the long-run anyway, and the sound is a bonus. So performances were everything, and with the shorter time you suffer as you have to cut corners somewhere. These days, I would have budgeted and begged for more time. But it was what it was, and if that band from 1988 came to me right now and asked me to do the record, I would ask for probably five weeks minimum just to record it. I’m never completely happy with everything I do and there is always something that can be done better. But considering the parameters we had to work in, yeah I’m really happy with it. It did its job and it launched the band. The purpose was really just to expose the band to a larger audience.”
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