And the winner is: 1988 original CD release. My initial thoughts upon listening to the 2003 disc were along the lines of, "wow, this actually sounds pretty good." This was reinforced by an A/B comparison of some songs with the 1998 original and noting that the snare drum sounds clearer and the overall sound is crisper on the remaster. But after listening for a bit longer, I found myself drawn to the original release from 1988 as listener fatigue began to set in. This is pretty dense music, but plenty of other dense metal albums from the late 1980s/early 1990s don't have this same effect on me (see 1991's Arise by Sepultura for one example). What I would like to have seen with the re-release of Rigor Mortis is the added clarity without the added compression, which would have been the ultimate presentation of the material. In particular, I find portions of some songs to be worthy of special mention as particularly fatiguing, such as the last half of album opener "Welcome to Your Funeral" and the entirety of penultimate song "Re-Animator." "Re-Animator" is a case in point here, as I'm not super fond of that song to begin with and find it tiresome to listen to all the way through even on the original release, due to its repetitiveness even without the fatigue introduced by any added compression.

All this being said, you should still consider picking up the 2003 release if you can due to the steep prices demanded for the original in the secondhand market. For such a groundbreaking metal album, you'd expect original copies to be plentiful, yet they are anything but. The cost involved with obtaining an original copy can be painful - something I know from direct experience - so the later release is the only viable way for most listeners to add a physical copy of this album to their music library. As of this writing it too is out of print, but used copies may still be found on sites such as eBay. Whichever way you go, be aware that this album is not for the faint of heart, with its recurring themes of murder and bodily dismemberment, traits which endeared Rigor Mortis to none other than a young Phil Anselmo of Pantera.

As an aside, if you ever get a chance to watch the band's documentary Welcome to Your Funeral: The Story of Rigor Mortis Part 1," you should do it. It's well worth a viewing and provided some good leads for me with my "Ghosts of DFW music history" blog series.