The Mr. T Experience - Revenge is Sweet and So Are You LP - White Vinyl (/300)

Sounds Rad (2022, Reissue)

1995's Love Is Dead was a pretty important record for me.  While it wasn't my first exposure to The Mr. T Experience, it was the first new record of theirs to come out after I had gotten into them in 1994.  Love Is Dead hit me like a ton of bricks.  It had built on the sound of their more recent releases and had really set itself as THEE album of this era of MTX.  A couple of years later when Revenge is Sweet and So Are You came out, I was primed and ready for the next chapter in that greatness.

What I got was a record that has always sort of perplexed me.  I like it, as it's hard not to.  It has an very similar sound and vibe to Love Is Dead, but something about it never quite hit me the same way back in 97.  I listened to it a lot.  Examining the lyrics, trying to pick out the chord changes...but for some reason it just didn't hit me with the same sort of impact.  Was it too similar?  Was it something else?  I never figured it out back then and after a few months, the album just sort of faded into the rearview for me.

Eventually I revisited it many years later and had a much warmer reception to it than I had previously.  I still can't pinpoint exactly what happened in 1997.  The best I can come up with is a combination of the record not quite hitting whatever my bizarre expectations were based on how obsessed I had been with their prior record and maybe just being in a somewhat different place musically in 1997 than I had been in 1995.  Looking at it today, it's a fun record to listen to and I appreciate it way more now.

The Sounds Rad reissue is top notch, as they've all been.  The record sounds better now than it ever has.  Slightly less compressed sounding and capturing a bit more of the energy of the recordings that the original did.  The artwork is a lovely gatefold and you can really tell the care that went into all of the packaging.  But it's the way this thing sounds that truly makes it worth purchasing again.  These Sounds Rad pressings are absolutely the definitive versions of The Mr. T Experience catalog and I keep waiting with baited breath that Making Things With Light gets announced very, very soon.