Record Store Day: Manchester Orchestra with Frightened Rabbit and Grouplove - split 12"

This was one I was looking forward to. A combination of two bands I love (and, for some reason, Grouplove)? Sign me up. I still managed to completely forget about it, like the well-organised human I am, and only remembered when I was looking for the Norland Wind 7" (sold out EVERYWHERE and on ebay for stupid money before the end of the day, thanks a lot Record Store Day) and the chap in Music Mania in Stoke said this was all the Frightened Rabbit they had in. I was pretty grateful.

The first side is a collaboration between Manchester Orchestra and Frightened Rabbit. I'm just going to hold back on the excitement that sentence gives me until a bit later in this post. The artwork though? The artwork is cool. 12 pairs of devil and weird elephant man for 12 inches of vinyl? I hope so. Not sure if I can deal with the slight slantiness of the red squares though. Hum.

The second side is a collaboration between Manchester Orchestra and Grouplove. I've never really listened to Grouplove before, so this excited me much less. The old man head reminds me a bit of the cover of Everything's Getting Older, but with much more teeth. Not sure why the song name is written upside-down with regards to the head, but whatever. Plain black vinyl, lovely labels, all's good. Oh, and I didn't include it but there was a download code included. No complaints there.

A 12" record with only two tracks on it always feels a bit of a waste to me, but it is what it is. Make It To Me is the collaboration with Grouplove and it's not bad. The synth-y elements that definitely come from the Grouplove side are a little irritating for me and I'm not a big fan of the non-Andy Hull vocals but it's kind of catchy I suppose. Architect, the collaboration with Frightened Rabbit, is much better. Scott and Andy's vocals compliment eachother really well and the song ends up sounding quite Frabbit-y, although it should be said that is about the level that MO's lighter output lies at. It's two of my favourite vocalists on the same song, I was destined to love it. This release is apparently "limited to 2300" (according to Discogs) which doesn't sound massively "limited" to me. Ah well.