Failure
[#] Magnified (Remixed and Remastered) (2020)
Inessential.
Reviewed September 8, 2025
(This review is specifically covering the remix job. For my feelings on the music itself, see my review of the original Magnified.)
Listen, I know my biases here—I'm autistic. We don't like change. I also was not a fast fan of the way Magnified sounded in the first place, so in theory, I should be thrilled to hear this. Thing is, the thin, trebly aggression of the thing was a big part of why Magnified works so well. This is effectively a tasteful flattening. A lot of the high end has been stripped off, the volume pumped and yet evened out to work better on small speakers. Plinky piccolo snares have been turned into normal, thumpy ones. It's nowhere near as offensive as the Comfort remix (not that that's hard), and there's even a few remixes that work decently well, but it's hard to consider it particularly definitive like Failure seems to want us to.
A lot of the songs—"Let it Drip", "Undone", "Small Crimes"—work mostly the same in both worlds. I could credit Failure for that, but remixes should be bringing new perspectives or improvements on the work, not just a mildly rebalanced version of the same. Some songs are massive downgrades, like the title track, without the air and dynamics of the original mix to give them their nihilistic crunch. "Wonderful Life" is one of the few remixes to stand on its own, fattening up the sound without completely changing the song's sonic profile. What you're left with on the whole is the feeling that Failure is trying to fit Comfort and Magnified into the context of their shiny, tightly recorded modern output when they just weren't intended for that. Even the exclusive rendition of "Pennies" feels superfluous, effectively an even shorter take of the Golden version.
| Essential: | "Let it Drip", "Wonderful Life", "Wet Gravity" |
|---|---|
| Quintessential: | "Moth" |
| Non-Essential: | "Magnified" |
| Rating: |  |
| Further listening: | Download from Failure's Bandcamp |