Completely agree with you. Kingmaker was one of my favourites of the year and a killer debut, I constantly find myself humming certain tracks. The VMP pressing was a huge letdown. I thought the package itself was as to be expected (standard jacket etc) but the poor pressing and staticy transformer-ish noise just put me off. I also had a replacement but it took so long to get to me that once I opened it to find the same issue I just gave up on it.
I actually went to one of Ross' live shows (I believe
@NathanRicaud went to the other date unless I'm getting mixed up?) and recorded bits of it on my iphone (so nothing fancy just using the voice recorder app) and I find myself listening to that more than the actual record which is a huge shame.