IN REVIEW: Manchester Orchestra

IN REVIEW: Manchester Orchestra - "Hope"

Back in the spring, when I reviewed Manchester Orchestra's fourth album Cope, I lauded the band for maintaining some of their emotional weight even while focused on making the hardest, loudest record they could; even at its ugliest the quality of Andy Hull's songwriting, as it turns out, trumps whatever else the songs may have in mind stylistically.

If listening to Cope doesn't bring that into sharp focus, enter Hope; comprised of quieter, more acoustic based versions of the songs on Cope, Hope attempts to be the yin to its yang, soothing where the former screamed. At the very least, it's interesting to hear the guitars stripped back, but much of Hope finds the band running too far in the opposite direction.

If you couldn't get past the slashing, violent guitars of lead single Top Notch, on Hope they've been reduced to a palm-muted whisper, leaving the growling and screaming of the former version to the piano. Girl Harbor's explosive chorus, once threatening to drown the listener in noise, now washes over like a pleasing wave lapping at your legs on the beach. Then there's Every Stone, one of Cope's true highlights; in its original form the most energetic and pleasant tracks, it ends up being one of the most altered songs on Hope. The tempo is dropped significantly, and the payoff of the chorus is distilled down to an solemn, plaintive vocal and sparse instrumentation.

All eleven songs are given the same treatment, whether it benefits the song or not. All That I Really Wanted actually reaps the biggest reward from the process; on Cope just another raging rocker, given so much room to breathe with the arrangement it receives on Hope its impact grows. Conversely, See It Again's a cappella interpretation removes most of the emotion and bombast of the original, presented here in its purest form but feeling like a hollow shell of its former self.

Which brings us to the crux of it; while laying the songs bare reveals their strengths, it also reveals their weaknesses. While there are a few alternates that are really well executed, there are a lot of songs which simply have the guts torn out, leaving only skeletons behind. Added orchestration can't fill all the holes, and much of Hope lacks the vibrancy and urgency that hallmarks the group's best work.

So, while it's interesting to hear these new interpretations, I'm not sure how many fans of the band will actually prefer them to the originals. Make no mistake, these songs still have great foundations, but the foundations are often all that's presented on Hope. We know they can go hard, and we know they can so soft, but this record offers no in between (and it certainly doesn't help the cause to remove drums completely from all songs). Having heard both quiet and loud versions of this album, one can't help but wonder whether or not these songs would truly thrive on neutral ground.

November 17, 2014 • Loma Vista

Highlights Girl Harbor • The Ocean • All That I Really Wanted

Year in Rock 2025

Alright, I've got some explaining to do. By now anyone who's visited this blog is well aware of how infrequently I've used this space in recent years; aside from the occasional fertile year of content, I really haven't posted all that often over the last five years or so. There are many reasons for this, which have already been outlined in previous apology posts; but, essentially, it boils down to my own laziness and the cold reality that blogs are, like Refused (again), fucking dead. So, I wouldn't hold my breath for a triumphant return to reviews, or even semi-regular posts, but: a) I feel like Year in Rock posts have always belonged here and, even though I've experimented with different methods of presentation recently and been satisfied, the "blink and you missed it" unveiling via Facebook stories this year was perhaps ultimately a disservice to the records I lauded. After all, cramming the list into short videos isn't too far off from ju...

Year in Rock 2011 Nominee: Sam Roberts Band

SAM ROBERTS BAND I Feel You From: Collider Released: May 10 Having already endured the breakout success ( Brother Down was Canada's it rock song of 2002), the tentative dabbling in the U.S. market, as is the rite of passage for all moderately successful Canuck artists (2003's debut We Were Born in a Flame was the best time to try; one of the best albums of the year, it made a small dent in the American mindset upon its release there a year later), the difficult, druggy third album (the aptly named 2005 disc Chemical City ), and the subdued creative step backward (2008's Love at the End of the World , aside from hit single Them Kids , was really kinda bland), it seems according to script that Sam Roberts would start settling in on his fourth album (and first with the band credited as equal contributors), Collider (you know, I think it was a bad idea to give me brackets). Well, as far as settling in goes, Roberts does and doesn't on Collider . W...

IN REVIEW: Rancid - "Trouble Maker"

As far as punk rock goes, it's hard to name a hotter hot streak than the trio of records Rancid cranked out between 1995 and 2000; the star making ...And Out Come the Wolves , the far-reaching Life Won't Wait and their balls-to-the-wall second self-titled album solidly positioned Rancid as leaders of the second generation of punk. It also preceded a period of slow progression, as Rancid would take eleven years to release their next three records. By the time ...Honor Is All We Know came in 2014, many fans (myself included) had to wonder whether or not this was the end of the road. Such concerns are handily dealt with on the closing track of the standard edition of their ninth record, the positively punishing This Is Not the End . Well, okay then, that's sorted. Now, what of this new record? What do we make of the use of their original logo on the cover, a logo that hasn't graced a Rancid record in 25 years? Is this a throwback to the band's heyday, a new begin...

SOUND BITES

Search This Blog