There’s something to be said about a band who has the gall to release its debut album exclusively on vinyl. Then again, when you are a group whose sound is as rooted in imagery as much as it is in sound, it would seem to be the only logical choice. Such is the case for Kay Kay and His Weathered Underground, whose eponymous, inaugural full-length is available only on wax in the States. The album boasts a sonic prowess that seems tailor-made for the LP format, right down to the super surrealist cover art one can study for hours.

“We are the children of the pre-digital era,” the band proclaims on its Web site. “Before your favorite dot com was just decimal points and numbers.” Based on the psychedelic pop swirl of these 13 exceptional tracks, which owe as much to the Decemberists as they do late-period Beatles, this is one release that needs to be picked up and held as opposed to merely downloaded. If ever there was a male response to Aimee Mann’s Bachelor No. 2, this would be it.