Photo by Andrew Thomas Lee
Manchester Orchestra will release Cope on April 1, 2014 through their recent partnership with Loma Vista Recordings and their very own Favorite Gentlemen Recordings. The new full-length album from the Atlanta-based band was self-produced alongside their long-time collaborating partner Dan Hannon, and mixed by John Agnello at Fluxivity Studios in Brooklyn. They recorded the entire record in the home studio they built themselves after six months spent gutting and refurbishing the old house they used to live in together. The follow up to 2011’s Simple Math, the band’s critically acclaimed and highest charting album to date, Cope is an unrelenting and unapologetically heavy 38 minutes of rock. Manchester Orchestra will hit the road this spring, performing songs from the new album for fans on a headline two-month tour of North America. Upcoming tour dates below. The band will also be headlining dates in April overseas in the UK.
Supporting the run will be Balance and Composure as well as Brooklyn native and Favorite Gentlemen label-mates Kevin Devine & The Goddamn Band. Several tour dates will be performed as part of the Freedom Project™, an event series presented by blu eCigs. Additional details regarding this partnership are to come. Tickets go on sale Friday, January 24th to the general public for both North America as well as the UK. The confirmed opener for UK will be Gang Of Youths.
Download the new song “Top Notch” from Cope on themanchesterorchestra.com
Manchester Orchestra found itself at a crossroads as they approached making their fourth studio album — in between labels and uncertain of the future for the first time since lead singer and songwriter Andy Hull started the band as a teenager almost a decade ago. He was barely finished with high school back then, and as they started writing, Hull and his band mates found themselves transitioning into the adult reality that shit happens. “Cope, to me, means getting by. It means letting go, and being OK with being OK,” says Hull. “You can cope in a positive way when bad things happen, or a negative way, and that blend was a big lyrical theme for me on this album.”
The behemoth title track “Cope” was written during one of the earliest sessions for the album, and it helped chart the course for everything that followed. “We wanted to make the kind of album that’s missing at this time in rock: something that’s just brutal and pounding you over the head every track,” Hull explains. “Whereas Simple Math was a different palate with each song, a different color, I wanted this to be black and red the whole time.”
After several months of writing and recording between June 2012 and March 2013, the band – lead guitarist Robert McDowell, keyboardist/percussionist Chris Freeman, bassist Andy Prince and drummer Tim Very – were forced to pair down the 28 or so completed songs in order to round out the album that would become Cope. “We demoed some slower, introspective songs,” relates Hull, “but we had to set those aside because this album is not that. This album was about being cool with dedicating yourself to something and sticking through with it. Even the album title is bold and straight-to-the-point.”
The direct and succinct nature of Cope is all the more refreshing considering two of the main factors surrounding its recording. Unlike their first three full-length albums where the band worked with producers Joe Chiccarelli and Dan Hannon in established, expensive studios, Cope was self-produced under the watchful and helpful eye of Hannon without any set limitations or times constraints. “There was no studio clock ticking, so we had the freedom to take our time and do whatever we wanted,” says Hull. “It was really cool, but weird, not having someone there saying ‘this is what you should do.’ It was more difficult, but more rewarding.”
Ten years after 17 year-old Hull started Manchester Orchestra as an outlet for his tender bedroom recordings, the singer-songwriter says he’s reached a place where he trusts his and his band’s instincts more than ever.
www.themanchesterorchestra.com
MARCH
6 – Anchorage, AK – Bear Tooth Theatre
APRIL
7 – Bristol, UK – The Fleece
8 – Birmingham, UK – The Glee Club
10 – London, UK – Scala
11 – Manchester, UK – Club Academy
12 -Glasgow, UK – SWG3
17 – Tampa, FL – The Ritz
18 – Ft. Lauderdale, FL – Revolution
19 – Orlando, FL – House of Blues Orlando
21 – Houston, TX – House of Blues Houston
22 – Austin, TX – Emo’s
23 – Dallas, TX – House of Blues Dallas
24 – Lawrence, KS – Granada
25 – Denver, CO – Summit Music Hall
26 – Salt Lake City, UT – In The Venue
28 – Spokane, WA – Knitting Factory
29 – Seattle, WA – Neptune
30 – Portland, OR – Roseland Ballroom
MAY
02 – San Francisco, CA – The Fillmore
03 – Los Angeles, CA – House of Blues Los Angeles
04 – Anaheim, CA – House of Blues Anaheim
06 – San Diego, CA – House of Blues San Diego
07 – Tempe, AZ – Marquee
09 – Colorado Springs, CO – Black Sheep
10 – Omaha, NE – Sokol
11 – St. Louis, MO – The Pageant
12 – Madison, WI – Majestic
14 – Minneapolis, MN – Skyway
15 – Chicago, IL – HOB Chicago
16 – Grand Rapids, MI – Intersection
17 – Cincinnati, OH – Bogart’s
19 – Toronto, ON – Opera House
20 – Buffalo, NY – Town Ballroom
22 – New York, NY – Terminal 5
23 – Boston, MA – House of Blues Boston
24 – Philadelphia, PA – Theatre of The Living Arts
25 – Philadelphia, PA – Theatre of The Living Arts
27 – Silver Spring, MD – The Fillmore Silver Spring
28 – Norfolk, VA – Norva
29 – Charlotte, NC – The Fillmore Charlotte
30 – Atlanta, GA – Tabernacle
31 – Nashville, TN – Cannery
