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Heed the Call

The Imperials

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Customer Reviews

Good music, wretched mastering

I grew up listening to this *record*, so I jumped at the opportunity to own the legitimate CD(-R) release of the album in 2003. My initial reaction to the CD was confusion, followed by anger at the horrible quality of some of the songs, including two of my favorites. A brief description of each selection follows:

1. Overcomer -- Imagine removing the tweeters from your 2-way loudspeakers, and playing Track 1 of this CD. If you reconnected them as the song played, you would hear very little difference. The low end of the bass guitar is clear, but full-range instruments and voices are muffled almost to the loss of intelligibility.

*NOTE: The AAC samples of the first two cuts sound superior to the full selections on the CD, but everything else sounds identical.

2. Praise the Lord -- This is a major improvement over the fidelity of Track 1, but it still ranks as mediocre for a couple of reasons: first, the vocals are intelligible but they lack "presence", the rendering with proper clarity and warmth, so the listener's attention is not effectively drawn to the lyrics; second, the overall frequency response of the track fluctuates dramatically in the loudest passages, betraying the use of peak limiting.

3. Oh Buddha -- Perfect, pristine, 5 stars!

4. Old Man's Rubble -- We have no tweeters, and unlike Track 1, the AAC sample shows no hope of improvement. This was one of my favorite songs on the album, horribly mastered for CD.

5. Heed the Call -- Perfect! The AAC sample here seems to lack the clear bass from the CD, but much worse problems can be found in this company.

6. Let Jesus Do it for You -- Sounds great. I can't call it perfect without knowing the producer's exact intent: the lead vocal seems slightly thin and distant, but that was probably an artistic choice to make them sound more like Chicago for the song. The CD has some Pop!s in the first verse, but the AAC sample appears to be free of those.

7. Growing Stronger -- Bass is solid. The treble and midrange have poor response, though they are not abandoned here as in Tracks 1 and 4.

8. First Morning in Heaven -- My other favorite song, represented in low fidelity. Vocals bubble with rumbling bass and sharp treble, but they still lack presence. If this song meets a good parametric equalizer, it might have a good future, but it isn't there yet.

9. Whenever I Speak His Name -- The midrange and treble are depressed. Some careful equalization might salvage it, but for now it's sinking.

10. My Mind Forgets a Million Things -- Woohoo! Armond Morales finally carries a song with a solo performance! D'oh! CD mastering butchers the performance! The piano and strings have an AM radio "quality" to them, sounding somewhat tinny, but basically lacking low end -- and high end. The deep baritone resonates and whistles, the sibilance extending as an artifact of noise reduction processing, which somehow carves a gash into the sweet spot of the (only) singer's voice, robbing his intimate expression of worship of its deserved intelligibility.

11. He Didn't Lift Us Up to Let Us Down -- Frequency response is uneven, instruments lack "air" and voices suffer from "splashy" phase artifacting at the hand of excessive noise reduction. The treble response "lifts up" slightly with a soft click at about the 1:50 mark. Nothing in this concluding session sounds right except for the Rhodes piano.

Without reservation, I would recommend #3, #5, and #6.
For fans who have gone without for a long time, add #2 and #8.
For those with good audio restoration tools, I would add #1, #7, and #9.
But please, please wait for remasters of "Old Man's Rubble", "My Mind Forgets a Million Things", and "He Didn't Lift Us Up..."

Sound quality varies on these songs

This is a great addition from the classic line-up, but the songs seem to come from different sources. Just listen to the samples and you can hear a big difference in quality between songs. If this were some sort of unofficial album, maybe it could be forgiven, but there should be some sort of warning (and hopefully an explanation) that, as of this moment, there are some sound issues. For a lot of these albums, we don't have many options since quite a number of classic gospel albums have never seen a CD release. So if you've gotta have it, grab it. Otherwise, hold out and see if a better quality version comes along.

Some Tracks NOT CD quality...

I was very excited that this album was being released on iTunes, but several tracks are not good quality (eg. Old Man's Rubble). Too bad.

Biography

Genre: Christian & Gospel

Years Active: '60s, '70s, '80s, '90s

The Imperials have been making music since 1964 and have in that time undergone many personnel and stylistic changes before returning to the close harmonies and straight Southern gospel songs that originally made them popular. As of the mid-'90s, Armond Morales is the only charter member of the Imperials; he and Jake Hess founded the quintet. Over the years, 18 different singers have come and gone, including such legends...
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