But four albums in, it's becoming pretty clear that the genre in which Manchester Orchestra resides has more untapped potential than the band itself.Given its name, you might expect Manchester Orchestra to hail from Manchester, England - or at least Manchester, N.H. And besides, if you think you can just dial this stuff up by turning on your local “alt-rock” station, well, there goes the Neighbourhood. And even if the verses rarely check out, the choruses are pretty fun to yell, and if you can open your heart to yet another imperial rock song called “The Ocean”, well, it’s the most fun of the lot here. Because this stuff can be potent in three-minute shifts, there’s an undeniable thrill in the way “Top Notch” thrashes in place, similar to watching the fight scenes from Iron Man 3 and knowing you’re not going to get that from an arthouse flick. Look, if you’re anything like me and strive to find at least five real-deal alt-rock bangers per calendar year, it’s easy to pull for these guys*-*they are underdogs within an extremely unique context. His lyrics have become tougher to parse, filled with parable and metaphor about relapse, religion and redemption, which makes the lost-soul clichés stick out even more than they previously did. Hull also fails to muster warmth and empathy, and despite his promise of Cope being “unrelenting and unapologetic”, he mostly flips “one good thing about music, when it hits you feel no pain” : these are loud songs that strike with the blunt force of a Nerf bat, as Hull emotes his heart out without really copping to anything. Even the high, lonesome harmonies, clearly meant to imbue some kind of human element, sound like digital clipping. The strings are gone, but there’s not a single yielding surface on any of these songs, and the only respite you get from the roaring, textureless guitars is a palm-muted guitar. For fans of Cease to Begin, the potential that comparison carries is pretty awesome, except Manchester Orchestra lack any of the aforementioned’s sweep and expanse.Įven if Cope never manages the undeniable wallop of Manchester Orchestra's S&M-friendly “Virgin”, it’s still every bit as exhausting and overproduced. Essentially, this is Band of Horses at their major-label crossroads and choosing not to hightail it into the heart of Dixie, alternating between pedal-to-the-floor howlers and bluesy bluster with little else in between. That’s a shame, since Hull’s clearly an ambitious guy, demonstrated by his leave-it-all-on-the-floor live performances-but the ever-escalating arms race with himself resulted in the simultaneous crescendo and crash of 2011’s Simple Math, where Manchester Orchestra took the latter part of their name to heart and burdened their sturdy, workmanlike rock with Michael Kamen-level bombast.Ĭope doesn’t frame Simple Math as a misstep-in-hindsight, although it doesn't try to top it, either this time around, it's 11 bullshit-free rock songs about getting past the bullshit in your life. And yet, Cope once again finds Manchester Orchestra in the netherworld they’ve long occupied: not quite as cerebral as they aspire to be, nowhere near as lunkheaded as they could allow themselves to be, making radio-friendly rock too leaden and static to make reciprocity a foregone conclusion.
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