![]() ![]() The Daniels’ immediate guideline was: “Cool, don’t use any instruments.” In the project, Hull and McDowell recognized an opportunity to leave their comfort zone and to push emotion to new heights. They had never written a flm score before, but the pair of musicians happily rose to the challenge. In the midst of the Cope/Hope LP release cycle, the directing duo The Daniels - who had created a dense, theatrical music video for Manchester Orchestra’s “Simple Math” in 2011, winning Vimeo’s “Music Video of the Year” in the process - countered Hull and McDowell’s request for them to work on another video with the idea of scoring the directors’ in-the-works feature flm debut, Swiss Army Man. So, for a musician used to writing out of self-refection, what do you sing about when life is good? For a band on record number fve and seeking innovation, how do you untangle yourself from the past? How do you write songs about being happy? It was becoming clear that they required a completely new approach from an entirely different sphere and set of faculties - and, lo and behold, just such a moment arrived when Hull and McDowell were offered the chance to score a movie. The desire to achieve greatness is often followed by a need for that same desire to evolve. Since the beginning, each subsequent Manchester Orchestra album had been a grand statement for that specifc moment in their career, originated in a desire to push themselves forward creatively. But now - thirty years old, stable, and a frst-time father - Hull found himself facing a crisis of inspiration. Their previous long-player, 2014’s Cope, had even spawned a cover album of itself by its creators, an acousticreworking and reimagining of its songs with a heavily emotional bent that they called Hope. ![]() The band had worked relentlessly to cultivate a passionate fan base the old-fashioned way: releasing music, making music videos, and touring (most recently with drummer Tim Very and bassist Andy Prince). The Atlanta-based band, led by singer/lyricist Andy Hull with Robert McDowell (who is also Hull’s brother-in-law and lifelong friend), had spent their career challenging each other to build a poignant, exhilarating narrative with each new album and EP. The album’s slow-burning title-track stands out with an elegant arrangement of synths and strings.Manchester Orchestra had always prided themselves on their approach. ![]() “April Fool” similarly rubs catchy power-pop against the grain of Hull’s uncertainty and self-doubting his roll as rock star. The instantly infectious “Pensacola” fuses ‘80s new wave with Death Cab For Cutie’s commercially accessible indie-rock where sunny melodies are contrasted with Hull’s fears. Gears immediately shift with the sludgy rock of “Mighty” as Hull admits his own stubbornness and fear of solitude while pining for a purpose and a post-jaded outlook. The subdued opener “Deer” pulses under delicately picked electric guitar as Hull’s wistful voice laments on how poorly he’s treated people. Manchester Orchestra’s frontman Andy Hull has stated that the band’s third studio long-player Simple Math is a conceptual album, but his inward lyrics serve more as a memoir of the singer’s 23 years on planet Earth, where he questions how his life fits in with the concepts of love, marriage, sex, and religion. ![]()
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