The Kinks – The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society

This pressing absolutely rips. Zero surface noise and sounds incredible

I have trouble to understand if this mastering is AAA ("Analog mastering for vinyl by Kevin Gray" seems to indicate that) or if it's from a digital transfer ("Analog tape transfers by Richard Whittaker) as some have pointed out in certain forums...

Can anyone point to an ITV from Kevin for example or has any bit of info that would confirm one or the other?

Mr. Kevin gray is magic. I want all my records to sound wonderfully like this one. My BW800 thanked

The album shows here and there The Beatles’ MMT influences. Almost universally praised as a chef d’oeuvre, it sounds, to my taste, somehow less musically consistent than precedent works of Ray Davies. However, an excellent addition to any 60s collection. Nice remaster and an excellent reproduction of the original album cover by the way...

Fuckin incredible sounding. Seriously I couldn’t care less about it being not a pure analog signal. If it sounds like this that’s fine.

Dead quiet pressing, superb mastering - punchy and well defined, incredible separation. Plays with a nature of well-done mono mixes from the 60's even though it's stereo.

I'm a huge fan of The Kinks, and this album is definitely my favourite from them. I could probably talk all day about the record itself, but I'll stick purely to talking about this particular pressing, for those who are interested in picking it up. It's really good. I tend to be a little skeptical about buying remasters on vinyl, because not only do the remastering jobs tend not to necessarily "improve" the listening experience, but they also tend to transfer quite badly onto vinyl. There are some exceptions from other classic artists (Zeppelin, Bowie, Pink Floyd, etc), and this is definitely among them. The people responsible for this issue did a great job with the overall packaging and presentation. The original gatefold is there, and the printing on it is great. The 4 page booklet is also a really nice addition, and it makes me wish that more classic reissues included this kind of stuff, because we hardcore fans always want to own physical liner notes, rather than just having to search up everything. I own the 2004 Deluxe Edition on CD, and I wanted to see if the liner notes of that were the same--and they're not, which is good. I'm glad they didn't just copy and paste it. They actually got someone else to write a whole new essay for this release.

And finally, the pressing quality--it sounds fantastic. I mean, the pressing quality, generally, is really good, but I'm especially impressed with the remastering job. I'm not sure if whether the 2004 CD version is remastered or not, but regardless, that's the version that I'm used to, so I was immediately able to tell that this pressing was a big step up from that. The sound is a lot sharper, and much fuller. I think the biggest difference was the drums. Again, it's all an improvement, but the drums seem to have a lot more substance in this mix. By comparison to my old CD version, they don't sound as underwhelmed or "drowned-out" by the rest of what's going on. I also found the stereo separation and panning to be more effective. It just seems a little easier to identify all of the different layers of instrumentation, because it always sounded quite clustered on past masters. There's a part of me that liked that, because I felt that it added to the band's garage elements, but it's really refreshing to hear the level of clarity that this new pressing offers. It's also worth mentioning that the value of this release is a plus too. Obviously, there are other, ridiculously expensive options on the table, but if you're just looking to buy the standard version for this release, you still get great treatment, considering that you can find this for 35-40 NZD.

Overall, two thumbs up from me.