Altered Since Birth is the name of the first ever Sinister box set. Thanks to Metal Mind Productions, pretty much the entire band's discography will be available for purchase in a strictly limited box set of one thousand copies, each box set being hand numbered. The set includes all their independent material including demos and EPs, as well as every recording up to and including The Silent Howling, and the Prophecies Denied DVD. All the songs are remastered, come in a stylish box with appropriate art, and an extensive booklet that is quite an interesting read. But, to the dedicated listener, is it really worth going out of the way to grab this?
Well, as far as box sets go, this is easily one of the best you can obtain. The box set includes every recording the band ever issued, outside one or two cover bonus tracks that seem to be missing for some reason. But, making up for it is the fact that each CD is digitally remastered through a twenty four bit processing method, and on the older CDs, it really makes them sound richer and sharper, really breathing new life into the Sinister classics. of course, it doesn't really help with all, as the newer releases in this set don't really seem to be any different from the initial material, and the Rachel-era of the band with her on vocals seem to feel a little hurt in the long run due to the remastering not helping the raw quality of the recordings, as well as the poor production kind of showing through more. But, what can you expect when the source material wasn't really that great to begin with?
Each disc on here comes in a digipack case without a booklet. While not having the booklets is actually a bit of a let down, at the same time it's pretty cool as the label takes the band's logo, and imprints it spanning the spines of the ten cases, and keeping a uniform design to them of a black background, logo at the top left, CD printing information on the bottom right, stretched logo across the spines on the center left above the name of the album, which are all the same primal-looking blood red font, though the alignment to the left side of the album titles is slightly off and annoying as all hell if you happen to be OCD about this kind of stuff. This isn't the case for the spine of the booklet that comes with the set, as it's simply the name of the book and the band's logo more in the middle. Granted it's not one of the discs, and it does stand out from them, which may bother you due to the lack of a uniform format for the book with the CDs, but feels appropriate in the long run no matter how much you argue the uniform point.
Each CD here comes with bonus live tracks as well, each track being a song from that specific album, Afterburner having the most bonus tracks (four total). The quality is kind of raw, not really coming from the audio board, or so it seems anyhow, and it really gives a good idea of what Sinister is like on stage. However, these tracks sometimes appeared on the label's earlier 2009 reissues of the early Sinister CDs, as well as do miss those few bonus tracks included with limited edition versions or previous reissues from another label. The Silent Howling, however, doesn't have any bonus material, which is rather disappointing as those missing songs could have easily gone with this recording since the DVD, Prophecies Denied, came before this album, which is where all these audio tracks come from, omitting the three introductory tracks from the DVD. This also makes up the supposed 2009 audio CD version of the concert on the Prophecies Denied DVD, adding a whole other element to the box set that never is taken into account. Technically, this makes it an eleven CD box set, though only ten physical discs exist. Of course, you can always make your own by taking the tracks, following the order from the DVD, and making your own version of the Prophecies Denied CD with a CD-R.
One of the nicest features to this is the ninety six page booklet that comes with the box set. Unfortunately, a good majority of that are the lyrics and information from the booklets that originally came with the Sinister CDs. There is a breakdown of the bands history in chronological order at the start of the book though, which makes for an interesting read, especially as you go through the box set and become familiar with the band's progression throughout their career, getting a vibe of the state of mind the band was in, and what condition the members happened to be in at that time, such as the woes that led to the break-up of the band in 2003. There's no indication who wrote the notes, but it's clear that it's either someone or someones from the band given the closing remarks that read "we hope you will enjoy it as much as we enjoyed making it," or someone composing it while pretending to be the voice of the band. Also included are various photos of the band, badges from various shows they did, flyers, etc., that act as a way to seperate the notes from one CD to another, and those are also just interesting to look at.
Really, the only gripe that can be said about this box set is that it doesn't quite feel complete. It's not that the set is missing anything from the band outside those two songs, and in fact the label has gone out of their way to make this a unique collectable piece and to correct some mistakes made on previous editions. The remastering also makes this a must have piece that, again, brings a unique wholeness to the set. But the one thing that many respect about Metal Mind Productions and their reissues as of late, if not expect from this label, is the golden discs. There are none this time around. Many of the label's reissues come on a golden disc, and it really just makes that release feel more important, even moreso then the hand numbered spot on the back pointing out how limited the pressing truly is. Sadly, that's not here. Instead it's just regular discs with a black front that has the band's logo on the top, title in white at the bottom (why not red to keep the uniform design from the spine we'll probably never know) and the traditional data such as copyright information, label's logo and compact disc logo at the very bottom, also in white. It does kind of keep with the design of the spine, with exception to the red font color, but it really wouold have been nice to have the golden discs instead to really give off a sense of how rare and important this box set really is.
Other then that, the box set is complete. Aside the golden disc issue, there's really nothing to complain about with the set at all. It's a superb limited edition piece any Metal fan can add to their collection. Sinister fans will find delight in the remastering of material, and having all their material available in one specific box set that just looks amazing. Those who aren't rabid fans but want to be will get the entire discography in one shot basically, and those just looking for something nice for their collection can look no further then this spectacular box set. Of course if you own all the CDs, including the reissues of the band's first few CDs that Metal Mind Productions put out in 2009, it becomes more of a judgement call, if you want to spend the money to add this to the collection on top of them, but given how nice this set is, it's worth adding it, even if you feel you have the complete package Sinister can offer. It's a fantastic trip through the band's twenty year career, and you will enjoy going through it as much as the band enjoyed making it.
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