Fans clung to Manchester Orchestra, knowing they had the potential to break through at any moment but fully aware that would tarnish the charm. I’m Like a Virgin Losing a Child opened the doors, a scavenger hunt of shapeless importance beyond their grasp and flippant idiosyncrasies that melded with their youth. Could they grow into the big boy pants they bought? Would they focus their obvious talent towards something both more humble and playful? Or would they go the route of far too many promising straight-up rock bands trying to prove commercial viability while still pretending to have the chops as indie upstarts? The jury’s still out, of course (no single effort can judge a band), but I hate to say that this ain’t progress.
Famous for their misleading moniker (they’re five dudes from Atlanta) and heavy thematic concerns despite their relative adolescence, I didn’t completely buy Manchester Orchestra the first time out, but they were raffish and motivated enough to point towards roads unspoiled by those of the league they were casually lumped in with. They recently toured with two of those very “similar” bands (Kings of Leon, Brand New), and while I didn’t believe the correlation then, I’m beginning to see it now. If post-post-grunge could be a genre, this is probably it, with a liberal dash of emo and power pop to change the mood from time to time.
But musically it works. Not “send it to a half dozen friends” good, but engaging in its fundamental appeal—loud, guitar-driven rock music with some catchy hooks and supple grooves along the way. The first half is grunge-pop, played fast and loud, and the second half opens up their sonic palette a bit for a more eclectic range (guess which side is better?). In the midst of the reckless stage cannon fodder, though, is Andy Hull, who is about three steps from becoming insufferable. I take no joy in reporting that, but it’s true.
Right from the start, his cracking voice wavers an entire octave range and back in single syllables on “The Only One.” The nasal scream on the gassy “Pride” never fits into the sagegrass composition, which shuffles itself somewhere into the huge void between cowboy blues and a heavy metal dirge. And on “Shake It Out,” he suddenly surges to a full scream, crying out, “Oh God, you gotta shake it out, shake it out!/You gotta break it down, break it out!” Sound and fury signifying nothing, indeed. Which is a shame, since the signature change in the crumbling bridge after that moment points towards a more ambitious and less transparent direction. It’s Colour and the Shape-lite, and Dave Grohl is a better salesman.
Tough times riddle the front end beyond that, but they’re still pretty digestible. “I’ve Got Friends” flips up the amps and pummels the listener with a crashing wave of guitars and a thunderous rhythm. At first, the barrage felt like a desperate bid for sizable penetration based solely on volume and density, but Chris Freeman’s trilling keys that answer the riffs offer a nice balance, ensuring it’s hooky enough to overlook the bare-shelf playbook. The soft-loud crutch of “In My Teeth” is comfort food, and the impenetrable wall of guitar scuzz on the home stretch is a hell of a drug, but the murky Biblical hooey that can’t be absolved (or ignored) during the calmer verses elicits eye rolls. And since the entire first half is an enfilade of buff riffs and artillery percussion, there’s no wiggle room for the drippy sentiment. By the time they arrive on the gentle opening verse of quickie “100 Dollars,” they don’t sound primed for a whisper ballad—they simply sound exhausted. And halfway through the sub-two-minute song, they break out the guitar pedals and Hull yelps for the rafters.
There’s no denying the power pop punch of “The Only One,” the stadium-sized “Friends,” the Spoon-y stutter rhythm of “Shake It Out,” Robert McDowell’s dinosaur riff of “Pride.” But paying attention between the lines leads to immediate dissatisfaction. Hull’s lyrics are a stormy sea of enigmatically slippery verses and vaguely demonstrative refrains. He talks about the “passive power of truth” on “The Only One” and yet there’s no truth to be gleaned since the whole thing is entirely nondescript. Other moments creak worse than haunted house staircases: “I am the living ghost of what you need/I am everything eternally” (“Shake It Out”).
Even on the more diverse second side, the results are still a bit mixed (again, because of Hull). But by this point, you’ve become accustomed to his unappetizing vocal inflections—it’s the lyrics that still land with a thud. “I Can Feel a Hot One” plays its slowed-down, spacious pace to the point where the words are required to be the driving point, but all Hull has are lines like, “To pray for what I thought were angels/Ended up being ambulances/And the Lord showed me dreams of my daughter/She was crying inside your stomach.”
Left with the crunchy melodies to carry us through, the words fade into the reverb. “My Friend Marcus” flusters between heart-on-sleeve emo ballad and arena-sized power ballad, which is tough to do, but manages to skirt mediocrity by melodically balancing the same piano chime against peppy grunge-friendly guitars that they skipped through on “All My Friends.” “Everything to Nothing” could become a real showstopper, especially with the guitar-crashing climax and the hearty sing-a-long blankness of, “You mean everything to nothing/You mean everything to nobody but me.” But then there’s “The River,” which might be even bigger, and has a fan-friendly scream-o chorus that’ll be tough to deride with a couple of $10 beers in your belly.
The fans will still follow Manchester Orchestra, and I’m sure they’ll be more forgiving of Hull’s songwriting than I am. As far as lyrical integrity is concerned, some may point to “Pride,” with its (I hope) metaphorical depictions of lions, cheap tricks, habits and dead necks, but I’ll be damned if I could figure out what Hull was talking about without really reaching. But nobody needs great intellectual ideas to rock out; the problem is that these guys are trying for them at all. If it’s a crisis of faith that has them wading into choppier waters or something else entirely, I can’t fault aspiration, but even the more forgiving should probably find it difficult to care when they lean into slick anthems—look what producer Joe Chiccarelli recently did to the Shins and My Morning Jacket. Hull clearly draws his concepts in rough shades, so where’s the grit to match? But I guess that’s not the problem—it’s the scope.
"Mean Everything to Nothing" is on sale April 21, 2009 from Favorite Gentleman.
