Elvis Costello – This Year’s Model [Stereo] (Mobile Fidelity GAIN 2 Series Half-Speed Mastered Edition)

(AAA) — Lacquers cut from the original analog master tapes at half speed by Shawn Britton at Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab.

Elvis Costello This Year's Model on Numbered-Edition 180g 33RPM LP from Mobile Fidelity: Ranked #98 on Rolling Stone's List of the 500 Greatest Albums of All-Time

Pump It Up: Costello's Hardest-Rocking Effort Sounds Livelier, Punchier Than Ever

1/4" / 15 IPS analog master to analog console to lathe

The first record he made with his legendary backing band the Attractions, This Year's Model is Elvis Costello's most explosive and urgent album. Picking up where his fine My Aim Is True left off, the British singer/guitarist blasts through 13 excellent tracks with the fervent purpose and headlong pace of someone who has a cab waiting for him outside.

Stylistically versatile, deeply varied, and melodically catchy, this where Costello came into his own—and where the chemistry between virtuosic keyboardist Steve Nieve, bassist Bruce Thomas, and drummer Pete Thomas produced one of rock's best groups. A dynamic maelstrom of emotional spite, bitter frustration, sexual angst, and caustic political commentary, the 1978 set boosted Costello's star and yielded innumerable standards: the undying MOR protest "Radio Radio," fervent "Pump It Up," and spunky "No Action" are all here.

While often cited as Costello's "angry" record, This Year's Model has more to do with disappointments and denials. The album bursts forth with a savage energy not possible without the Attractions, which are responsible for the songs being built from the ground up. Where Costello's voice and twangy guitar dominate My Aim Is True, here, sizzling rhythms and Nieve's colorful organ runs anchor the foundations. This is a group effort, with Costello's biting lyrics taking chances and forcing the listener to mull double meanings all the while the music zooms by at a fast clip.

More than 30 years after its original release, This Year's Model will still leave you breathless. Railing against unachievable desires, Costello and company delight in the anguish, and spit such torment back out in the form of hook-ridden music that functions as a brilliant form of situational confirmation and emotional catharsis.

Mastered from the original tapes, Mobile Fidelity's numbered-edition 180-gram LP brings This Year's Model's vicious songs to the forefront like never before. Punchier, gutsier, and livelier than any of the myriad CD remasters, this edition offers a transparent window onto the Attractions' loose interplay, Nieve's carnivalesque organ work, and rabid pounce of the Thomas-Thomas rhythm section. Here, for the first time, are previously buried tones, textures, and details. It took years to happen, but this is how This Year's Model was always supposed to sound.

"[The] pressing sounds great from the very start, with more dynamics throughout, a jet-black background, and some serious bass. Finally, this record has some weight, eliminating the thin sound of the original. 'Little Triggers' is particularly warm and could be the best-sounding track on the set. Though This Year's Model has been remastered quite a few times over the years, this is the definitive version to have in your collection."
– Jeff Dorgay, TONE Audio

(Above description from MusicDirect.com)