The Wonder Years 'Suburbia...' 12" - The most bendy release of the year

And so the arrival of The Most Anticipated Pop-Punk Album Since The Wonder Years' Last One was met with a heavy rumble of disgruntlement. Not the ACTUAL album, the music itself is incredible, and shoved TWY even more heads and even more shoulders above their contemporaries. But it seems that a fair few people around the world are receiving this vinyl in unplayable condition.

'Suburbia I Have Given You All And Now I'm Nothing' dropped through my door yesterday, and after checking it was what I thought it was, I sent a message to a few mates who I knew were waiting on the same record to let them know it had started arriving.

I opened it up, and basked in the loveliness of the Orange/Grey split. A pressing of 500.

Then I received a message back from one of the before-mentioned mates saying how there'd been reports of a shit load of people receiving their records in a varying degree of a warped condition. Checked mine, and yup, warped. 

It was slight, but no where near as bad as some of the reports on the VC Boards, which had lit up with people reporting the condition in which their LP was arriving, despite no damage to the sleeve or mailer. I stuck it on, and was greeted by it turning on the deck like a wobbling spinning plate and 3 skips in the first track. 

Fabulous.

On closer inspection, it's the thinnest vinyl I have ever touched, its like a fucking flexi-disc. This can't have helped. The package overall has a pretty cheap feel. My picture of the back cover almost makes the slightly blurred picture look alright.

The insert is cool, big fold out poster, which has the lyrics and some pictures of band mascot Hank The Pigeon at various spots around what I guess is TWY's home town. Lyrics are printed with an individual dedication for each one.

Luckily, despite the slight warping, on repeated plays I get no skips anywhere. So it plays ok, which means no complaints to No Sleep Records from me. With some higher quality sleeve production, I would have zero problems. But still, shouldn't moan. Some people's records turned up looking like a piece of modern art, and No Sleep are going to have a pretty full Inbox to start wading through.