So more than three months after I ordered the fucking thing the vinyl arrived. Probably the best effort I've seen - there is a plastic sheet that comes with it so you can create that effect with the cover. Both (heavyweight) vinyls are coloured. There are two booklets, gatefold size, that contain artwork and lyrics, which is super awesome. There's also two bonus tracks on side D.
Unfortunately the album itself just doesn't quite stack up. The best TVOTR songs feel urgent, exciting, and there's very little of that here. On Seeds the lyrics are mostly empty platitudes about girls, there is very little that sticks with you. That would be okay if the music held up but it too isn't very gripping. THere's more focus on synthetics so the rhythm section goes missing quite a bit, which is a damn shame given how much it has propelled TVOTR songs in the past. Both Kyp Malone and Tunde Adebimpe deliver underwhelming performances. There's also a concerted commercial push which results in terrible songs like Ride. The bonus tracks are a mixed bag. Nobody Else is embarrassingly bad but Mystery Eyes is better than 95 per cent of the record.
There's certainly good moments, Careful You, Test Pilot, Trouble, a few others, but overall a disappointing effort imo