“Little girl you are cursed by my ancestry/There is nothing but darkness and agony,” he sings on closer “The Silence,” and any gift has a curse on the receipt: “You lift that burden off of me” and “Let me hold you above all the misery” are from the relatively happy songs that bookend A Black Mile. If anything, reaching 30 as a healthy and happily married father with an increasingly influential band has made him even more skeptical as to whether he deserves any of it. He has a Coloring Book moment with “The Maze”, a gospel-powered tribute to his daughter Mayzie that would be unbearably cloying were it about literally anything else. One might think exposure to that much real and cinematic flatulence might lighten Hull’s mood a little. Hull’s been given some serious source material, namely the birth of his daughter and co-writing the mostly a cappella soundtrack for the farcical body comedy Swiss Army Man. The result is Manchester Orchestra’s most confounding, thrilling, and unintentionally loopy album yet. So, no surprise that the narrative concepts, the production, and arrangements of A Black Mile to the Surface are the most grandiose of his career. But while his extreme emoting has remained in the new decade, Simple Math and Cope dulled its impact with plodding, nuance-free nu-grunge, lowering the bar to something closer to, say, a more meaningful Silversun Pickups. As a prolific, teenaged old soul in the gilded age of MySpace emo, he wanted to be Conor Oberst, Sufjan Stevens, and Jeff Mangum at the same time, finding no personal, religious, sexual, or societal crisis too melodramatic to face head on. If this sounds familiar, it’s because he promised pretty much the same thing three years ago on Cope. Manchester Orchestra frontman Andy Hull promised a scaled down version of his band on A Black Mile to the Surface, a course correction after the overproduced thud of their previous album. Conceptual conceits aside, Simple Math is a fairly passionate and rocking affair filled with sprawling, if still tightly wound anthemic pop.Manchester Orchestra’s new album is their most confounding and thrilling work yet, with the most grandiose narrative concepts, production, and arrangements of their career. In that sense, the album brings to mind similar works by such artists as the Queens of the Stone Age, Tool, and, as on cuts like the new wave-esque "Pensacola," a slightly more robust take on Death Cab for Cutie's yearning pop. I killed the kingdom with one move and now it's time to move." The self-reflection and general tone of pyhrric release-turned-rock star empowerment continues throughout much of the album with such muscular, sludge rock numbers as "Mighty," and the fiery, ragingly melodic "April Fool" being particularly catchy and moving numbers. Ended up abusing even those I thought immune. He sings, "Dear everyone I ever really knew, I acted like an asshole so I could keep my edge on you. It's clear from the melancholy lead-off track, "Deer," that Hull is angry, depressed, and regretful over most everything in his life. Which, essentially, consists of the time Hull - in his twenties as the time of release - has spent with his band, which he started in high school. Manchester Orchestra's 2011 effort Simple Math is an epic, would-be concept album revolving around lead singer/songwriter Andy Hull's life to date.
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