Vinyl has been a passion of mine for the past six years or so. I started buying tons of records by all the bands I loved when I was a teenager and slowly started to get into more of the niche stuff and more of the rare records. I found labels I liked that always pressed vinyl for their bands, even if it only sold a few hundred copies or less. I found really small labels that pressed super limited runs of albums or EPs that didn’t get a lot of love (shoutout to intheclouds). I went through a phase where I wanted to collect every variant of all my favorite bands and eventually realized I was insane and didn’t have that much money or room on my shelf. I stopped buying as much vinyl the last year or so due to lack of funds but I still buy the things I really care about. This sort of post is where I’d like to show those things off, as well as the pieces that I’m really proud of in my collection. So, that being said, here’s the first run at that!
Manchester Orchestra
A Black Mile to the Surface
Deluxe Edition Vinyl
Hello all! Manchester Orchestra has been one of my favorite bands of the last decade or so. I have all of their albums on vinyl (except You Brainstorm… I still need to order that), I’ve seen them three times and adore pretty much all of their music. COPE and HOPE bored me a little, I’ll admit, but I still think they’re great records. So, of course, when they released “The Gold” and put up their pre-orders for A Black Mile to the Surface, I jumped on it. Sadly, I didn’t get The Gold Bundle, but I got the deluxe edition, which I assume means there’s a plain black or white variant floating around.
I ordered the deluxe edition from Amazon, because Amazon Prime shipping, and got an email two days before the release saying the record had shipped. The next day, the album was streaming in a lot of places online so I got to sit down and listen to it a few times to write my review on it but was still very happy to have it in my hands when it came in on Friday. I was fairly busy during the weekend, though, and didn’t get a chance to listen to it until this morning.
The jacket is printed on very nice, heavy stock and isn’t too glossy. Some jackets are printed with a gloss to them that makes them look a little too silly. Going forward, it was obvious that they put a lot of effort into making the whole package feel premium and worth the extra cash. The dust sleeves are black and have the anti-static lining inside them that always feels impressive to pull the record out of.
The vinyl itself is a double LP and has a very nice heft and thickness to it. The color fits the album artwork superbly; it’s a clear vinyl with black and maybe some white splatter. I’ve had some sound problems with splatter variants like this before but I’m glad to report that this sounds phenomenal. There was no crackling or pops that I could hear, which are usually the problems that can arise from some crazy colored vinyl. It doesn’t seem to be as much of a problem in the last few years. The etching is also very nice to look at. Though, with my eyes, it can be hard to see those so it’ll probably look even nicer to you.
I’m going to try and keep these non-review posts fairly concise, so hopefully you enjoyed it and feel free to let me know if you have any suggestions or things you’d like to see my include in the vinyl posts. Happy listening!