Written by Susie Salva
Atlanta’s Manchester Orchestra second album, “Mean Everything to Nothing,” on Columbia Records is everything you want a rock record to be: raw, urgent, emotional, and 100 percent authentic. “There’s nothing fake about this record,” says frontman and lyricist Andy Hull. “There’s not one fake sound on it. We recorded it live because we wanted it to sound like a band and I think it does: live and loud.” But their name is problematic for they are neither from Manchester and are definitely not an orchestra. Still their album has much merit.
Inspired by the pounding, primal assault of Weezer’s “Pinkerton”, Nirvana’s “In Urero,” and the Foo Fighters, “The Colour and the Shape,” this young band has created it’s own version of what a classic rock album should sound like, complete with fiercely beautiful melodies, shifting guitar and keyboard textures, loud/soft dynamics, and an urgency in each band member’s performances, especially Hull’s cathartic vocals.
The drama is magnified by the fact that the album’s first six songs bleed into on another without stopping. The blistering opener, “The Only One,” immediately gives way to the propulsive “Shake It Out,” and the torrential first single, “I’ve Got Friends,” followed by the anguished, “Pride,” and the menacing, “In My Teeth,” before slowing down on the darkly funny, “100 Dollars.” Then the album pauses and down-shifts into less relentless yet equally gripping territory songs from, “I Can Feel A Hot One,”(which was featured on Gossip Girl last September), to the ruminative closer, “The River.”
The breakneck pace is both exhilarating and exhausting, which Hull says was intentional. “I like the fact that there isn’t a chance during the first six songs to say anything if you’re listening to it with somebody. It’s seamless. We did that to emphasize that there are two halves to the album.” The first half is a brooding tale of teenage angst and anger – the confusion and disillusionment of growing up and becoming an adult. The second half is about redemption and an overall re-evaluation of the self. It’s about Hull beginning to realize his own words, “that things are not ok, and there’s a beauty in that – a calming, a forgiveness,” he says.
“It’s all been great,” Hull says. “but I have to say the best thing about the past year has been developing the brotherhood the five of us have. This band has been through hard times and have come out stronger that ever before. That’s what makes it worth it.” For all things Manchester Orchestra go to www.themanchesterorchestra.com or www.myspace.com/manchesterorchestra.
