In The Aeroplane Over The Sea is not a particularly easy record to "get," but when you do get it ... well ... it'll blow your mind.

Neutral Milk Hotel's second and final album puzzled many a listener upon its initial release in February of 1998, it's random mix of battered folk songs, Ramones-esque fuzz, Salvation Army brass and general, hyper-distorted psychedelic weirdness admittedly being a lot to take in on first approach. Time has been kind to (sorta-) one-man band Jeff Mangum's 1998 magnum opus, however, and much as if you spend a bit of time yourself absorbing everything going on here all at once it starts to make complete sense, popular culture on the whole has now spent enough time with In The Aeroplane Over The Sea to recognize it as a bizarro indie-rock classic. Neutral Milk Hotel -- which Mangum abandoned shortly after the album's release due to some mental-health issues -- was even able to do a (sorta-) reunion tour in 2015 of venues four or five times larger than any of the tiny clubs they were playing in 1998 because its audience has only grown and grown and refreshed itself since it abruptly vanished. Also? "King Of Carrot Flowers Pt. 1" could be the best opening track on an album ever.