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Manchester Orchestra: I'm Like a Virgin Losing a Child

12th September 2007 | by Ross Riley

First of all we begin with our public service duty and trade description law compels us to inform you that this band are not exactly an orchestra, and in no sense do they even hail from Manchester.

That indeed is where the duplicity ends because in this case those two extreme wrongs have conspired to make a right, and in this case it is a right of truly great proportions.

Manchester Orchestra is the kind of band that catches you almost breathless with its audacity, incredibly young, yet creating the kind of emotional intensity that few bands will ever master in a lifetime. Thoughtful, intelligent, raw power is the primary quality of this full length debut and it doesn't make a brief appearance, it is emotionally entangled with each track.

The album starts like a rocket launch, with three tracks, 'Wolves At Night', 'Now That You're Home' and 'The Neighbourhood is Bleeding', that show off some of the best primal lyrical screams you will have heard in a while. Andy Hull's delivery is raw and superficially simple, listen a few times though and you'll realise that this is a man that can literally pierce your ribcage and wring every last drop of life from your heart.

The peak of the album comes at tracks five and six - 'Where Have You Been' and 'I Can Barely Breathe'. Firstly 'Where Have You Been' is a masterpiece in the truest sense of the word. Not perhaps since Bright Eyes recorded 'Something Vague' has there been a track that so obviously sits as a colossus towering above its contemporaries. Live this track is astonishing, on record there's an added intimacy as you listen in on a tortured existential fumble in the dark.

There's almost, in theatrical style, a need for an interval at this point, but from one of the most poignant tracks musically, you're cajoled into an immensely textured lyrical serving. 'I Can Barely Breathe' explores the disasters, the opportunities and the regrets that life throws - 'If seeing is believing then believe that we have lost our eyes' is simple but masterful in its poetic intent.

There are occasionally moments when writing about music seems as pointless as dancing about art, this happily is one of those moments. Manchester Orchestra have made one of the best, if not the album of the year and this is one of those occasions where only listening to the music will suffice. Succinctly put, this is an immense, tangled, rewarding album that deserves a place right next to your wrung out heart.

Rating:  9 / 10