Manchester Orchestra...

I'm blown away. At last a record that grabs my attention and holds it. I've listened to Manchester Orchestra's I'm Like A Virgin Losing A Child incessantly for the last week.

First things first: Manchester Orchestra is from Atlanta, GA. And their kids. By kids I mean they're all around 19 or so, kids to a man of my advanced age. That youthful energy is palpable on I'm Like A Virgin Losing A Child, it infuses the record with purpose in a way. It's most certainly a musical statement produced by the passions of youth. There are odes to broken hearts and weightier issues of deceased parents, real heart on the sleeve stuff that might make you want to hurl accusations like "emo" at the band, but don't be too hasty. There's something far more imaginitive and inventive going on than your garden variety cookie cutter emo rock schlock here. Does it not rock? Why yes it does rock. Does it not get quiet and emotional? Why yes it does get quiet and introspective. But the album does both these things in unexpected ways, or at least in ways as unexpected as you can get within the confines of rock and pop songs. It's emo with imagination, emo that resents the tag and wants you to show you why. It's The Weakerthans without the politics. The Shins with no shine and more guts.

I'll admit that at times it's totally overblown. But that's what youth does, youth makes big weighty pronoucements and acts like it knows everything. When you get older you realize that you didn't know everything at 20 or 21 or even 25, and there's a hell of a lot more subtlety and hair splitting in the world than you realized. But that kind of stuff comes later in life, right now for Manchester Orchestra life is an open wound that bleeds music. It sounds pretty killer.

1 from I'm Like A Virgin Losing A Child:

The Neighborhood Is Bleeding