Manchester Orchestra always seem to be placed somewhere between conventional indie rock and the teen angst driven market led by Brand New and the like. This isn’t meant as an attack on those sorts of bands but it sometimes appears that MO fail to get the recognition they deserve with their blend of the epic and the restrained producing stories about ordinary people but of near-biblical proportion. RAGC! takes this further and masters the idea.

As with all of the very best songwriters, Andy Hull is more than a musician. He is a storyteller, someone who can spin a narrative with all of the related emotions and feelings in just a few fragmented sentences. Through both lyrics and tone of voice he illustrates the joy, grief, desperation and downright loneliness of human relationships. Themes straight out of the classics; love and hate, forgiveness and revenge. The albums are about being far away from what you care about and our struggles to return. They are about our inability to appreciate the the thoughts and motives of others.

The story resolves around a sailor away at sea, a man separated from his wife and children. I’ll say little more and let the tale unravel for you in your own time but I urge you to read Hull’s thoughts on the trilogy to fully develop the plot as he intended.

As with The Antlers’ Hospice, the albums are enjoyable as a straight narrative but can also be taken as a giant metaphor or expanded upon within your own imagination. I guess it depends how much you want to read between the lines.

Bandcamp is the place to go to acquire The Bitter End, The Eventually Home and The Church Of The Good Thief. You will not regret it.

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