However, in practice, it’s a little hard to tease out this narrative from the songs. ![]() Lead singer Andy Hull explains: “If Black Mile was this idea of ‘from birth to death,’ this album would really be more about ‘from birth to beyond, focusing on the highs and lows of life and exploring what could possibly come next,’” he says. McDowell’s father’s 2019 passing further colored the album with more personal interpretations of the original material. The Million Masks of God starts with a startling reckoning with mortality, like welcoming a baby by pointing out they’re just on a journey toward death: “You’re inaudible / Thrown away like an audible / Wheel you down to the old folks home / Are you listening to me?” Masks’ loose narrative is based on the journey of a fictional character who encounters the Angel of Death and is shown various good, bad, and mundane scenes from his life. While writing A Black Mile to the Surface, the band’s lead songwriters Andy Hull and Robert McDowell had an “epiphany” about how they wanted to write their future albums: “movie albums.” Influenced by their experience writing the soundtrack to the 2016 film Swiss Army Man, Manchester Orchestra’s “movie albums” are a cross between concept albums and the pre-playlist era listening experience: albums intended to be listened to “in sequence and in a single sitting, with the songs working together to tell a bold, long-form narrative.” ![]() The band’s new record, The Million Masks of God (out today on Loma Vista Recordings) is the second album in the new creative phase A Black Mile introduced, in which Manchester Orchestra trades in its original emo/post-hardcore songs for high-production-value epics. Manchester Orchestra solidly transitioned to lush indie rock territory with their cinematic fifth album A Black Mile to the Surface (2017).
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