Naked Eyes debut album 2025 remaster on CD and vinyl

[Fred Taghon]

New 2025 remaster by Phil Kinrade, who has been doing the Erasure remasters since "Wild!".

https://chrysalis-records.com/artist/24 ... lang=en_US

[fozl1986]

The 3rd Remaster...

[Fred Taghon]

I picked this one up and am very pleased with it! As far as the album tracks, this is now my preferred source (compared to the 2012 "Burning Bridges" reissue). "The Time Is Now" and "A Very Hard Act To Follow" are included as bonus tracks here (they were B-sides in the U.S. back in 1983) and they also sound excellent. The Cherry Red 2012 reissue was a little too bass-heavy for my tastes, but this one is beautifully EQ'd. Compressed, yes, but not horribly, and I think it actually makes the songs sound tight and full but not overwhelming.

The demo tracks are in decent condition and interesting to hear.

The only real slight disappointment is with the 12" version of "Always Something There..." which has its channels reversed and seems to run slightly fast. Of the 3 Naked Eyes CDs I have with this version, the "Everything And More" compilation from 2002 still has the best sound quality.

UK B-sides "Pit Stop" and "Sweet Poison" are included and sound fine, but these 2 tracks also sound BEST on the "Everything Amd More" release.

"Voices In My Head" is fully intact here, whereas there was an odd "edit" at 2:07 on the 2012 Cherry Red reissue where a second or two was missing.

As on the 1983 North American release of "Naked Eyes", the version of "Always Something There..." used here is the Jellybean 7" remix with the percussion intro and drums playing throughout the "church bells" bit.

Packaging is VERY nicely done. Love the far superior cover art, and it's actually pretty faithfully reproduced for a change.

I wrote a more comprehensive overview at:
https://www.discogs.com/release/3536900 ... Naked-Eyes

[Fred Taghon]

I have to make a correction to my comments above, and i also changed my discogs review to reflect this...

The version of "Voices In My Head" included is the U.K. version which DOES have the edited drum break at 2:07! For some reason I felt the need to double check this, and my gut instinct was right!

So of course I was then curious about the original 1983 vinyl pressings from both the U.K. and the U.S.

I found YouTube uploads of vinyl recordings from both countries and, indeed the U.K. records all appear to have the edited drum break and all the U.S. records appear to have the longer drum break!

Naturally I wondered which one is "correct". As luck would have it, the demo of "Voices In My Head" is included on the new 2025 reissue, so I took a listen, and it DOES have the longer drum break! So for some reason, the U.K. masters of that song edited it down!

My mind is reeling! Lol.