---

SITE RATING:  2/10 SITE REVIEW:  Wisconsin-based Platinum Disc Corporation is responsible for much of the landfill that pollutes America's dumping grounds, with cheap, shoddy releases like this one, which does nobody a service by remastering what sounds like a vinyl recording on CD, with no notes, no credits, a mixed-up track listing, and poor, flat sound.  The anonymous soloists and choir, laboring under generally uninspired direction plow through the meager selection of choruses and arias with all the brute force of a piledriver.  Despite the cover showing a full digital recording, there is nothing in the sound to verify it, with one of the dullest mixes I've ever heard on a Messiah.  Among the artists performing, the choir has some bright spots, with a charged reading of "He Trusted In God" and overall involved readings of "Hallelujah" and "For Unto Us A Child Is Born" - undercut by the blunt-instrument-like attacks and full-throated singing styles.  The arias are similarly throttled - with the bass soloist bludgeoning "Why Do The Nations" and nearly strangling himself on "The Trumpet Shall Sound".  The soprano soloist similarly gives a tender reading of "I Know That My Redeemer Liveth" - tender, that is, until she muscles up into her upper register, while the hollow-voiced tenor sluices his way through "Every Valley" like a slippery carp.  The sloppiness of this release continues into the track listing, which contained no fewer than two glaring errors amid the eleven tracks.  A budget release that isn't even worth its notoriously cheap price.

---