After releasing a split EP with Kevin Devine last year, Manchester Orchestra is preparing their third studio album to be released May 10, 2011. According to lead singer Andy Hull, Simple Math is a profoundly personal concept album where Hull questions every aspect of his life, from marriage to love, religion to sex.
That’s enough to pique my interest, but when I click over to Manchester Orchestra’s website, I’m surprised to see a curious geometric puzzle that begs users to “Unlock Simple Math.” After dragging and dropping the first virtual piece, a snippet of Manchester Orchestra’s first single “Simple Math” is played while lyrics flash across the bottom–“The truth cannot be fractioned” and “What if it was true, that all we thought was right, was wrong?”
After releasing a split EP with Kevin Devine last year, Manchester Orchestra is preparing their third studio album to be released May 10, 2011. According to lead singer Andy Hull, Simple Math is a profoundly personal concept album where Hull questions every aspect of his life, from marriage to love, religion to sex.
That’s enough to pique my interest, but when I click over to Manchester Orchestra’s website, I’m surprised to see a curious geometric puzzle that begs users to “Unlock Simple Math.” After dragging and dropping the first virtual piece, a snippet of Manchester Orchestra’s first single “Simple Math” is played while lyrics flash across the bottom–“The truth cannot be fractioned” and “What if it was true, that all we thought was right, was wrong?”
Hull’s gravelly voice comes in over the clip as he explains, “I had the demo and I could see it, you know, I could really feel how crazy it was going to be in the end, and by the time that we got to a finished product, it was like, ‘This is everything I’ve ever wanted to do in an album.’”
I’m more than ready to hear that craziness, and after I drag the next into place, Hull continues to describe the anticipated follow-up to 2009’s Mean Everything to Nothing.
“I realized kinda the only way we were going to be able to do that was to write the biggest thing we could write–not in like, hits or whatever, but just basically coming up with ten songs that were just excellent. And for us it was like, ‘Okay, what have we never done before? We’ve never used a kids choir, we’ve never had, like, a twelve piece orchestra on stuff that makes it sound like it’s the end of the world.’”
As I frantically complete the puzzle, “Simple Math” streams in its entirety, beginning with ethereal muted electric guitars and Hull’s characteristically raw voice. Listening to Hull sing, “I’m lost and hardly noticed” feels overwhelmingly intimate, as if I had accidentally wandered onstage during his emotional soliloquy. But what starts as a poignant ballad builds up in typical Manchester Orchestra fashion as strings creep in, the snare drum enters loudly and “Simple Math” swells into its chorus. Hull continues to bare his soul by asking tough emotional questions. “What if I was wrong and no one cared to mention?” The track has a perfect ebb and flow–the verses subdued, while the choruses crescendo into an orchestral climax of a bridge, with Hull’s wailing vocals and the steady harmony a third above his melody.
The band has also released a dizzying lyrical video with cascading geometric shapes. The neutral-colored video explodes with brilliant red and is an undeniable stoner’s dream. If I wasn’t so curious to see what sort of video Manchester Orchestra will create to accompany such a sweeping anthem, I would be content with the lyric video.
When I first heard “Simple Math,” I was a little disappointed that the first single wasn’t as energetically jolting as Mean Everything To Nothing’s “I’ve Got Friends”. Hull’s deeply personal explanation of the album makes me realize that “Simple Math” isn’t meant to immediately grab your attention, but rather slowly sneak into your heart. This single is reflective of Simple Math, an album Manchester Orchestra made to challenge themselves and, in doing so, may have set the bar for alternative rock.
There is no question that Manchester Orchestra’s music is a tour-de-force of emotion, unabashedly baring their souls and mistakes in sweeping anthems. It’s hard to believe a band that has already put so much of themselves in their music has more to give, but if Hull’s promises of an epic, symphonic album hold true, and “Simple Math” is any indication of what Manchester Orchestra has in store, May cannot come soon enough.
