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Manchester Orchestra - Mean Everything To Nothing
(Columbia) UK release date: 27 April 2009
4 stars
Manchester Orchestra - Mean Everything To Nothing

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track listing

1. The Only One
2. Shake It Out
3. I've Got Friends
4. You, My Pride And Me
5. In My Teeth
6. One Hundred Dollars
7. I Can Feel A Hot One
8. My Friend Marcus
9. Tony The Tiger
10. Everything To Nothing
11. The River / Jimmy Whispers (Hidden Track)

related
ALBUM:
Manchester Orchestra - Mean Everything To Nothing

ALBUM:
Manchester Orchestra - I'm Like A Virgin Losing A Child

TRACK:
Manchester Orchestra - Wolves At Night
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Manchester Orchestra


Manchester Orchestra's front man and vocalist Andy Hull would appear to be something of a crazy mixed-up kid. Having been prolific and (hyper) active since his not-so-distant high school days, at one point having dropped out so that he could better concentrate on his music, the band are now putting out their second album, a release that seemingly both addresses and mirrors confusions and contradictions in his life.

Emotionally, the mood of the album is turbulent, troubled and changeable. Many tracks speak of inner turmoil, "A bigger mess, that you can't fix", Shake It Out puts it, or, in one of several lyrics that seem to capture the disaffected adolescent's outlook and way of speaking: "Whatever, whatever, I can't speak" (You, My Pride And Me).

Drug use and/or abuse are obliquely referred to in several tracks (In My Teeth, I Can Feel A Hot One, Everything To Nothing, for example), yet another constant reference is religion - God and Jesus. Hull is a "son of a pastor", he tells us in the opening track The Only One, and reckons "Jesus don't come round unless we pray" (In My Teeth). The impression is of someone simultaneously rejecting yet reaching out for his childhood beliefs, particularly on The River, where he slowly and movingly pleads "Oh my God / Make me clean again".

It is difficult to avoid making the presumption that most of this is autobiographical. As well as the pastor Father, other characters that we are introduced to include a grandfather who leaves a note in his coat to be discovered by his grandson (Everything To Nothing) and a brother on the (irritatingly) hidden track at the end, touchingly informed that "We're brothers, that makes it right".

Just as the emotions in the album are something of a mixed bag, so it is with the musical stylings. The band can switch from sounding fairly straightforwardly emo, as on Shake It Out and You, My Pride And Me, to something more akin to the gentler, electronica-flecked side of checked-shirt indie. It is on this latter type of track, specifically The Only One, I've Got Friends, In My Teeth, and I Can Feel A Hot One, that they really come into their own.

When they hit gold in the form of good tunes, added texture and oomph from keyboards and synths, plus the heavy post-hardcore guitar deployment at which they also excel, then they really do produce something quite special. Hull's affecting vocal (he really sings like he cares) adds to the effect, and is best when used more softly and melodically, although he does run the full gamut from tender croon to very angry shout, often within one song.

Despite a couple of forgettable tracks near the end (the bland Tony The Tiger, and the overlong Everything To Nothing) then, this is an album that wears its befuddled, het-up, over-emotional heart on its sleeve, and is all the better, less slick and more interesting for it. As a depiction of late-teen / early-20s angst it rings loudly, confusedly, but valiantly true.

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