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Album Details
- Artist: Manchester Orchestra
- Album: Mean Everything To Nothing
- Label: Favorite Gentlemen/Canvasback Recordings
- Year of Release: 2009
- ME Rating:
- Reviewed by: dadair on 2009-08-20
Recommend"I am the only one that thinks I'm crazy and I don't know what do?
And I am the only son of a pastor I know, who does the things I do."
This is not a sneak preview of a forthcoming Kings Of Leon song, it represents the opening line of ‘The Only One' a brooding psych' tilted rock slide that introduces the 2nd official album of the Atlanta, Georgia upstarts, Manchester Orchestra. ‘Shake It Out', continues the moody tunes when singer, Andy Hull settles effortlessly into a slightly desperate vocal drag. It has a building southern scamper, helping to promote the reflective, lovelorn and life weary lyrics that are given extra impetus during occasional frantic outbursts. It's their mood switching ability which is given extra focus on this album. This is drawn out in the slow building power ballad, ‘I've Got Friends' that wrenches out regret and unashamedly shows an underpinning of urbane anger.
It has always been clear from their previous work, Manchester Orchestra knows how to channel their feelings, but the stirring guitar led cacophonies now seems to add extra impetus to this element of their sincere song crafting. They often take the earthy rock pull of My Morning Jacket and The Black Keys, then drag it through a sewer of old dirty blues rock influences. This is part of their sound that's as much grateful to 60s British blues rock, as anything from their home country.
The mid-section of this debut full length is decorated with a neat vocal to-and-fro between Andy Hull and Erica Froman, ‘100 Dollars'. With the only accompaniment to this being an extremely low-key guitar twine, as they use subtlety to draw out reflective forlornness. Building up neatly to a worried, almost rant by Hull. Wistful interludes are scattered around like litter, giving the shows of feeling and emotion even more impact. However, it is when the wistful continues for the whole mini-epic song, ‘I Can Feel A Hot One' that the true versatility of this act is laid out to bear.
Revving guitars and dusky vocals give the lacklustre and disbelieving ‘Tony The Tiger', oodles of gritty life and, at times, it's the closest this band comes to out-and-out blues. Epic tune building ability is yearningly drawn out through, ‘The River'. A low-key, streaming instrumental element takes a backseat initially, to the echoing lament covering sibling rivalry, amongst other things. Then BAM, it is that characteristic mood switch again, manifesting in the desperately expressive vocals of Hull. Bringing about a killer pace change. No matter how much you think you're expecting it, you can't help but be taken by surprise.
Thoughtful, yet moody rockers now have a safe haven from which to enjoy their occasionally frowned up preference of music.
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on 2011-09-12 CharlesMartel Said:
On many levels this is really disappointing. I had high hopes for this album, but having bought it and listened to it intently over an extended period of time, it fails to match the expectations I harboured for it at the time of purchase.
In some ways what disappoints is not so much " Mean Everything to Nothing ", but this situation in which I find myself. You see yet again (I don't know how many times I have found myself in this position) I find myself reviewing one of the more highly-praised releases of the year and have come to the same conclusion about it as with others. I have heard all this before. First it was "Fire Like This" by Blood Red Shoes. Today it is "Mean Everything to Nothing" by Manchester Orchestra. Yes, I have heard all this several times before.
This music is the crossover point between indie and emo. The same slightly tortured, angst-ridden vocal style which reminds of bands like Weezer and a dozen other bands of the last decade. Occasionally, Manchester Orchestra slip into slower mode and run with just a single or double guitar sound, such as on the hidden track at the end of the final song (and best track on the album), "The River" . But when it does, it just sounds excessively maudlin.
Some critics whose reviews I have read have commented on the quality of the lyrics. Well, I have to see that, occasional flashes apart, I just don't hear it. OK, that line in the river, sung in a choked voice by Andy Hull does carry a mournful, resigned, plaintiff almost tearful ring to it, but this line is not enough to rescue the rest of the album
"I'm going leave you the first chance I get"
But really, if you want to hear original, classiy lyrics, then I suggest you go listen to the Weakerthans. Different musical style, I know, but that was a band who knew how to write lyric full of imagery, full of portent, full of real quality.
Musically, the same story is apparent. Most of the time the album is just a repetition of something I have heard before, even down to the Black Sabbath style power chords which dominate " Pride" . Even when they try to be, Manchester Orchestra do not manage to come up with anything original, and without originality, no musical genre is going to develop.
In the end, I am not sure where this album leaves me. At times it offers the potential for something, but that potential is never realised. It never rises above the dozens of other bands who are churning out the same sort of thing in the same style. And therein lies the problem. Much as I might be drawn to angsty, punchy music which deviates from the mainstream norm, when it doesn't deviate sufficiently from the norm, from what has gone before and what I have come to enjoy, then I have a problem with it. And that probably explains why I have a problem with this - it wants to belong to a particular musical niche and wants to belong so much it forgets to differentiate itself.
Had this album come out in 2007 I might have regarded it as being a classic of its time. But it didn't. It came out at a time when something fresh is needed to blow away the cobwebs of musical sterility. And this album does not deliver. I can put it on, I can listen to it, I can almost enjoy it, but it is deeply unsatifying. I want more than this has to offer because what it offers is what I have already encountered. And more of the same simply isn't good enough any more.
Rating: 6/10
