The Band Cahoots (50th Anniversary) Half-Speed Mastered DMM 180g LP

Analog Planet's Top LPs of 2022: The Best Archival Releases - Rated 10/10!

The Band celebrates the 50th Anniversary of their fourth studio album, Cahoots, with new 50th anniversary editions of the classic album, overseen by principal songwriter Robbie Robertson and sporting an all-new stereo remix and remaster by Bob Clearmountain from the original multi-track masters. Now available on 180-gram, half-speed mastered vinyl.

When The Band pulled into the unfinished Bearsville Sounds Studios in Bearsville, New York in early 1971 to record Cahoots, their fourth studio album, they were still basking in the success of their first three history-making records.

The Band's landmark debut album, July 1968's Music From Big Pink, drew inspiration from the American roots music melting pot of country, blues, R&B, gospel, soul, rockabilly, the honking tenor sax tradition, hymns, funeral dirges, brass band music, folk and good ol' rock 'n' roll to foment a timeless new style that forever changed the course of popular music.

When they released their seminal eponymous second album, The Band, the following year in September 1969 - or "The Brown Album," as it would lovingly be called - not much more was known about the reclusive group. Even so, August 1970's Stage Fright, recorded over 12 days on the stage of the Woodstock Playhouse in upstate New York, cemented the fulfilled promise of those initial back-to-back albums that solidified The Band as one of the most exciting and revolutionary groups of the late 1960s, who were able to carry their avowed excellence directly into the 1970s without interruption.

Indeed, The Band, made up of four Canadians and one American, was still purposefully shrouded in mystery at the turn of the decade, allowing for listeners and the music press to let their imaginations run afield about who these men were and what this music was that sounded unlike anything else happening as the psychedelic '60s officially wound down.

Dressed like 19th-century fire-and-brimstone preachers and singing rustic, sepia-toned songs about America and the deep south, The Band - Garth Hudson (keyboards, accordion, horns), Levon Helm (drums, vocals, mandolin, guitar), Richard Manuel (keyboards, vocals, drums), Rick Danko (bass, vocals) and Robbie Robertson (guitar, piano, vocals) - was still somewhat enigmatic as the '70s began to unfold and unravel around them, but there's no denying how The Band was able to forge such an ineradicable impact on the music scene at large heretofore unmatched by any group that came before them, or since.

The new version of Cahoots is a night-and-day listening experience. For the first time, we are really hearing this album professionally completed. (It was basically released in an unfinished, more-or-less demo state back in the day.) Kudos to Robbie Robertson and co-producer Bob Clearmountain for the vision to complete Cahoots, making it now stand tall as a truly great Band album. The 180g vinyl pressing quality is top-notch here too.