Overlooking the Toronto skyline from backstage at the Molson Amphitheater, Manchester Orchestra’s rhythm-guitarist and singer-songerwriter Andy Hull took in a drag and the scene.

“It’s pretty awesome to wake up in the city that you grew up in,” confessed Hull, moments before opening for My Chemical Romance and Blink-182 as part of the 2011 Honda Civic Tour. It would almost seem that, other than sharing a stage, lyrical honesty and vulnerability is about all that these three bands have in common.

“It’s fun man, they’re all really kind people,” says Hull about being on the road with MCR and Blink. It’s been a sleepless summer for Hull and company, leaping between a plethora of festivals from Montreal’s Osheaga to Chicago’s Lollapalooza. “It’s been quite an experience to play these venues. It’s definitely this casting vision tour to really see how big a band can get. It’s kind of crazy. And [Blink-182] is definitely a band that represented a huge part of our childhood.”

“I used to hide [Blink-182's] ‘Take Off Your Pants and Jacket’ from my mom all the time,” adds keyboardist Chris Freeman, dawning a black MacBeth Footwear t-shirt, a company owned by Blink-182′s singer-guitarist Tom DeLonge.

Manchester Orchestra was founded by a 16-year-old Hull in 2004 with his buddies: bassist Jonathan Corley, Freeman, guitarist Robert McDowell and drummer Tim Very. Their suburban Atlanta walls likely plastered with posters of the English city Manchester, a city that has spawned musically rich children from Joy Division to Oasis to Stone Roses.

“Growing up at 16, we pretty much named the band after the Smiths,” reminisces Hull as he looked to Freeman’s smile. “It was a band we were all really, really into.” He also cited the range of musical influences to be “anything from Pavement, Built to Spill, Modest Mouse, Neil Young, Bob Dylan, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Granddaddy, the Weakerthans, and the Flaming Lips.”

The five grew to produce arena-worthy anthems that hinted at an intimacy of an “indie rock” mix-tape. This signature sound was honed in 2005, while playing over 200 shows behind their first release: “I’m Like A Virgin Losing A Child.” A massive sound emerged that rippled exploration into issues of life and the human condition, essentially shredding the chains that age and experience wrapped around him.

Inspired by classic nineties efforts like Nirvana’s “In Utero” and Weezer’s “Pinkerton,” the band shifted their distorted textures to create their sophomore album, “Mean Everything to Nothing.”

After opening for their friends Kings of Leon at Madison Square Garden in 2010, the band went into the studio to patch together a musical vengeance of emotion. Almost like Dylan’s “Blood on the Tracks” responded to his carnage of relationship, Hull painted a comparably darker and more modern picture of the lover’s debris. Its melodies sound like enlightening promise, yet the undercoated lyrics protest distraught and failure (check “Virgin”at the band’s website).

Their third full-length album, “Simple Math,” surfaced in May and critics have praised its intimacy and Rolling Stone magazine found it “tough to look away”. It debuted at No. 21 on The Billboard 200 and at No. 8 on the magazine’s Rock Albums chart. A mixture of spiritual and marital confessions, it’s not just a few good songs; it’s an album.

“We made a strong commitment to each other that we wouldn’t make any records that were a step backwards or even a step on the same plain,” Hull looks at Freeman, almost like reaffirming a non-verbal agreement. “So that was pretty simple. We just wanted to step it up and make something that was grand, potentially better. But, still have it feel like a counter-piece to our record before.”

Freeman notices that, “the writing process was kind of easier on ['Simple Math'] and it felt natural.”

For the first time, the band recorded without former drummer Jeremiah Edmond, who parted ways with the band in January 2010 to focus on his family and the band’s record label, Favorite Gentlemen. “He was such a power drummer,” Hull says. “It was cool to work with guys who had a different feel, finesse and pocket to their vibe. We were playing outside of what we were used to doing when it came to recording and writing. It allowed us to explore different areas.”

This fall, the band will be dedicating their time by embarking on a 25-city tour in the U.K. and across the States. Aside from their hometown, the band is looking forward to playing their namesake.

“It’s one of the coolest cities we play, the people are so appreciative of us,” says Hull, cracking a Jack Nicholson-esque smirk.

Imagining the scene, Freeman chuckled to himself, “those Manchester crowds are crazy.”

“They’re just ready to get it on.”

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A lot of bands are into the music business for the money (well, what’s left of it anyways). Manchester Orchestra is into making music for themselves – music that they like. Is that selfish? Anyways we had a chat about what’s new in the world of Manchester Orchestra.

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Can you have an intellectual and thought provoking conversation hungover? Jordan and Manchester Orchestra prove you can. The group spoke about the modern day music business, progression, and maintaining an audience. And they also have a hilarious music video. See for yourself.

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It’s been a long time since I’ve purchased a brand new album on a whim. As a student, I have little disposable income so you had better believe I expect purchases such as this to pay off.

Well, my friends, I may have hit the proverbial jackpot. In the last two weeks or so, I’ve been carelessly shelling out my rent money for records, yet the return turned out to mean more to me than a roof over my head.

My purchases?

Regina Spektor’s Far. Manchester Orchestra’s Everything to Nothing. Grizzly Bear’s Veckatimest.

It wasn’t planned in advance, I didn’t wait in line outside the doors of HMV the day Grizzly Bear’s third album was released, and I actually didn’t even know Regina had been in the studio. As for Manchester Orchestra, it was more peer pressure that led me to buy it. Peer pressure and a steal of a deal at Sonic Boom.

The moral of the story, though, is the pleasant surprise that quickly followed the first few listens of each.

In a bold move, I declare Far my album of 2009. It is everything Regina Spektor has made herself – quirky, mouthy, melodramatic – but with the solemn edge that briefly reared its head on “Begin To Hope”, now fully-formed and reckoned with. “Laughing With” is an interesting choice for a single – a friend of mine has tried to call it her “What If God Was One of Us” – yet the lyrics miss soppy altogether. Its Regina’s artistic accuracy that take her piano pop to a different stratosphere than the Vanessa Carlton’s of the world. Like Ben Folds, this generation’s piano man, Regina has lip and a throat to back it up.

But before this blog turns to an album review, or an all-out love fest for my favourite Soviet songstress, let’s move on.

To the next big thing in scene-rock, a genre from which I had distanced myself after The Format broke up and phrase band names came in vogue. Listening to Manchester Orchestra, though, I was reminded of all the reasons I became a scenester in the first place.

Not only is this record positively drenched with angst, vocalist Andy Hull gets the point across without shredding his vocal chords. His pleading wail gives them an indie tinge, reminiscent of Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, probably due in part to producer Brad Fisher who has been in the studio with ambient rockers The Shins and My Morning Jacket.

The album flits between dance-rock and epic ballads, all the time grungy but delicately so. (See “I Can Feel a Hot One”, almost a capella complete with an obo’s mourn drifting behind the sluggish tempo.)

It’s a rounded listen, addictive from front to back with lulls in all the right places.

And there is Grizzly Bear, almost all lull but a captivating kind of quiet. I hadn’t heard of this band until reviews for their latest album speckled every inch of my computer screen and magazines. When it was finally released, I was drawn like a moth to the beautiful flame of the album cover. Of course, I had heard “Two Weeks” and was totally enraptured by the percussive hook, which is incidentally the best example of the band’s penchant for genius rhythm, even if it’s not always danceable.

Now, I can’t say I actually love this album. It has its moments, “Two Weeks” is undoubtedly my song of the summer. And sure, there are other single potentials, but I prefer to listen to it in one sitting, allowing my imagination and attention to wander through its hazy soundscape. It’s the kind of album you would enjoy on a rooftop patio in mid-afternoon, possibly sitting next to a four-hosed hookah pipe and weaving a hemp bracelet. And while I can’t say that opportunity has yet presented itself, I’ve been enjoying Veckatimest all the same.

Obviously these albums are worlds apart from one another, but they share a common thread of roundedness – from front to back they flow, unwavering in each of their respective traits.

Maybe I’m only getting this impression because it’s the summer and I have the time to sit around and appreciate whole albums at a time. But I think even if it were the dead of winter and the very real potential of sleeping in the snowy streets of Ottawa lay before me, I would still have handed over my hard-earned pennies for all three of these albums.

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