Manchester Orchestra: I'm Like A Virgin Losing A Child (180g, gold swirl vinyl) [FAVORITE GENTLEMEN]

Why you'll love it

This pressing puts the Atlanta band's debut on heavyweight 180g gold swirl vinyl. It's the record that introduced Andy Hull's big, aching voice, and "Wolves at Night" found a second audience on the NHL 08 video game.

This edition

• 180g vinyl
• Gold swirl vinyl

About the album

Most bands treat their debut as a warm-up. Manchester Orchestra scrapped an earlier album after a line-up change and went straight for the deep end with this one, a 2006 record from a group of very young Atlanta musicians who already sounded like they'd lived a few lives each.

Andy Hull writes and sings, with Chris Freeman on keys and percussion, Jonathan Corley on bass, Jeremiah Edmond on drums and Robert McDowell on guitar, and producer Dan Hannon pitches in on guitar while mixing the lot. "Wolves at Night" pairs haunting organ with a bluesy stomp, "Now That You're Home" rides a huge open-chord riff, "Where Have You Been?" leans gently toward alt-country, and "Golden Ticket" swells into something properly widescreen. "The Neighborhood Is Bleeding" and "Colly Strings" show how much ground they could cover.

It came out first on the band's own Favorite Gentlemen label, which they started themselves, and it set up everything from Mean Everything to Nothing to A Black Mile to the Surface. A debut this assured from players this young is the sort of thing that makes the rest of us feel we ought to have practised more.

Also at Kops: more Manchester Orchestra on vinyl · browse Alternative

Tracklist

Listen

On Favorite Gentlemen (cat# 88697 12648 1), the 2006 album.