Format, The - Interventions and Lullabies - Cyan Blue Color Vinyl

Two kids from Phoenix, a major-label deal, and an album the label never bothered to sell. Nate Ruess and Sam Means recorded Interventions + Lullabies in May 2003 with producer R. Walt Vincent, and Elektra put it out that October. Five months later Elektra was folded into Atlantic, the new owners declined to spend a dollar promoting it, and one of the decade's warmest power-pop debuts was left to survive on word of mouth alone. It did — well enough that Ruess would later fill stadiums.

What keeps it alive is the songwriting. "The First Single" was literally about starting the band. "On Your Porch" is five minutes of quiet devastation. "Career Day" and "A Save Situation" close it out. Throughout, Means tucks banjo, accordion and harmonium in beside the guitars, which is why this one still sounds like nothing else from the class of 2003.

This is the 2023 twentieth-anniversary repress on cyan blue vinyl, pressed at Pirates Press in the Czech Republic with a single-panel reverse-board jacket.

Side A
1. The First Single
2. Wait, Wait, Wait
3. Give It Up
4. Tie the Rope
5. Tune Out
6. I'm Ready, I Am

Side B
7. On Your Porch
8. Sore Thumb
9. A Mess to Be Made
10. Let's Make This Moment a Crime
11. Career Day
12. A Save Situation