Manchester Orchestra's Coping Strategies Lack Clarity

Wrongly or not, in pro football, a team's fortunes rise and fall with the play of its quarterback. He's the most public face outside of the coach and he tends to be the guy who gets blamed when the team can't take it to the next level. In rock circles the front man is the quarterback. If his efforts aren't up to snuff, the band can kiss its long-term prospects goodbye. Atlanta indie rockers Manchester Orchestra have much going for them. Throughout its "Cope" album the melodies go in unpredictable directions that keep you guessing at every turn. Bassist Andy Prince proves himself astute enough not to blow all his firepower in the early going. The beautiful ruckus he instigates alongside lead guitarist Robert McDowell for "See It Again", the next to last track, brings shiver to body, knocks on the spine, and then jams it slowly through so as to maximize the demonically inspired effects. Drummer Tim Very is, if you'll pardon the blatant use of his last name to induce cheap yucks, very gifted. He jets from fleet footed to devastatingly potent as if it was a mere day at the office. We come around full circle to the front man position. I realize Manchester Orchestra hints at Manchester, the region in England, but the pea soup thick voice of lead singer Andy Hull can be a distraction, not a particularly favorable one either. Show of hands out there indicate to me how many of you find a man singing in a peanut butter stuck to the roof of your mouth tone alluring? When he's not testing my patience there, he does so by dashing in and out of aurally legible, like someone who rapidly turns a radio knob from soft to loud and back again. About the most I glean from "All That I Really Wanted" is that a woman in his life gets fucking drunk way too much. "Indentions" is the 9th track out of 11. That's way too far into the mix to start catching the ear of your listeners but Andy finally marries his Brit-heavy chops with bandmates who give him room to compose, deliver, and then step back to note the consequences of his thoughts. The grooves are as tight and enticing as one could ask for. Andy's indentions refer to the trace of memory anyone will have of him when he expires. The title track comes last. Lucky for us the entire enterprise clocks in at under 40 minutes because the fuzz, unpredictable turf shifting, and absence of an Andy Hull to English translator are going to leave you chronically exhausted. "Cope" the single is menacing. You can tell right away claw marks are slowly asserts their presence along your back. "Every Stone" won't likely elevate you from the funk you've been fighting. "Top Notch" opens things off the right way. Thunder rolls due in large part to Tim Very's eagerness. "Trees' unloads choice bombast worthy of the majestic titular landscape ornaments. "The Ocean" easily jangles not to mention lends weight to the band's tendencies towards laying down a lick, and then dropping in another that goes in the opposite direction from where your comfort zone might be. As an indie rock act they get a little license to maintain the underground enigmatic pelt that makes groups of this variety an endlessly captivating live draw. Nevertheless, we'd have a degree of immediate access to Andy's anguished deliberations if he didn't take the Manchester half of his band's name so literally. I think Brits are as interesting a people watching session as the next guy, but Barry White said it best when he opined, "Too much of anything's not good for you baby." Well played. "Cope" sees the Atlanta tribe coping by resisting an easily discovered route to universal connection. If we could better understand the language spoken in Andy's soul we might be tempted to root for him. As it stands "Cope" doesn't appear to have put any aspect of its past behind it.