Polygondwanaland first appeared as a partial leak on the band's demos for the album. The leak was uploaded to SoundCloud in April 2017, but was soon taken down.[4] As a result, news of the album was scarce and mostly involved rumours, one of which stated that it would be the last of the five albums released in 2017.[citation needed]
The track "Crumbling Castle," which appeared on the demo, was performed live by the band as early as September 2016, albeit in a much shorter form.[5] However, it lay dormant for many months during an especially prolific period for the band, leading to speculation that the track might have been scrapped. Both the track and the music video were finally released on 19 October 2017,[6] exactly one year after the first performance of the song was uploaded to YouTube[citation needed].
The legitimacy of the demos were all but confirmed at this point, as not only did the track feature the album's name in the lyrics, but it also contained lengthy musical passages equal in duration to the demo.[citation needed]
Polygondwanaland was officially announced on the band's Facebook page on 14 November 2017. The release date and cover art were publicized by the band, who stated, "This album is FREE. Free as in, free," encouraging fans to make their own copies and bootlegs of the album. The band said that they would not be selling the album in any shape or form, even going so far as to put the master tapes online (including a vinyl master) for free use.[7] The album was uploaded to streaming services such as Spotify and Apple Music on 18 November. Masters and artwork files can be downloaded from the band's website for personal use or for pressing CDs and vinyl.[8]
On the day of the announcement, multiple labels announced they would be producing their own physical copies of the album. Among these were ATO Records, Blood Music, Needlejuice Records, Fuzz Cult Records and Greenway Records. Fans also started crowdfunding campaigns on sites like Facebook and Kickstarter to produce their own versions of the album. After being released by 88 labels worldwide in 188 different variants,[9] they announced an 'official Flightless pressing' of Polygondwanaland.[10] It has been called "the ultimate vinyl release" by Louder than Sound.[11]
Versions of the album downloaded from the band's website are sometimes accompanied by a lyrics text file translated into Esperanto and an ASCII Banner of the band's name at the top.
Polygondwanaland was generally well received by professional music critics upon its initial release. In a 4 out of 5 star review for AllMusic, writer Tim Sendra claimed "Hearing them incorporate all the different sonic flourishes they've employed in the past in pursuit of good songs and not some higher concept means the album may slip past unnoticed, but it will sound great to anyone not scared off by the lack of theatrics. Tracks like the spookily restrained "Searching," the rampaging "The Fourth Colour," the tribal "The Castle in the Air," or the thrumming title track are the work of a band in full command of their process and results."[15]
Pitchfork gave the album a score of 7.2/10[12] and ranked it 17th in their list of the 20 best rock albums of 2017.[17]
Vinyl releases have tracks 1-4 on Side A, and tracks 5-10 on Side B. Track titles adapted from diymag.com.[18] Writing credits from Flightless Records' LP label.[19]
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Media related to Polygondwanaland at Wikimedia Commons
