Taken from Melissa Locker’s article on IFC.com:

Every once in a while a band really surprises you. Manchester Orchestra’s new album — and especially the title track “Simple Math” — does just that. The band’s sophomore album “Mean Everything to Nothing” was hailed as a masterpiece, which meant there were a lot of expectations for the young band’s next effort. But instead of living up to those expectations, Manchester Orchestra far surpassed them. Their new album, “Simple Math”, due to hit stores on May 10th, is an album of intricate beauty and well-crafted songs, that reveal a depth of emotion far belying their youth.

The title track is a dense five minutes that builds from a quietly haunting starting place to a beautifully soaring and string-backed crescendo. The band is at their best in the song, layering rhythms on top of each other to create complexities of sound that you don’t come across very often. The lyrics speak to a new-found and perhaps hard-won maturity for the group, but whatever turmoil lead to this rich sound, it’s the fans who have really won. The video that accompanies “Simple Math” reveals the dark thoughts and intensity of emotion interwoven into the song. It is heartwrenching and beautiful and raises questions that may not have an answer. With no further ado, here is the video for “Simple Math”: