Rejoice all ye Neutral Milk Hotel fans! Your prayers to St. Mangum have been answered! Your pleas for an audiophile copy of the beloved On Avery Island and In An Aeroplane Over the Sea have been heard by Merge Records. Verily, I beseech you dear brothers and sisters of the Elephant Six, at least cast your eyes upon the awesomeness that was, is, and will be the cult of NMH. Yes, today is that day!
The underground popularity of this band never ceases to amaze me. It’s been something like 10 years since the band was around. Since that time, hopes and dreams of a reunion or even just seeing Mangum on anything even resembling a stage have not ceased! What is it about these songs, these incredibly strange melodies and lyrics, that keep us enthralled?
And Mangum, man, we wish he was still around. Athens has this way of pushing unique guys towards stardom (Stipe, Mangum, Barnes…) whether or not they stick around town, that’s their own deal. At least we still have the Elephant 6 collective cluster o’ bands.
But until our King of Carrot Flowers returns in some incredibly epic but completely unannounced way, we shall have to be content with these 180 gram vinyl reissues and dream of aeroplanes over the sea.
athensmusicjunkie.com 