In my post about that album, I mentioned this song had one of my favorite opening lines, and much to my surprise, the same rings true for Hope, even with the lyrics changed: “Choose You” offers the first major lyrical diversion from Cope. The chorus, a once-shouted “All that I know, there’s no way to fix it” is instead melodically droned out, giving it a haunting, lingering vibe that carries the song to its close. This was one of the heavier songs on Cope, but its Hope counterpart is an acoustic, palm-muted rendition of the song that sets the tone for the album to follow. The songs appear in the same order with the same titles as on Cope, starting off with “Top Notch”. At the time I criticized it, but in retrospect, it makes sense paired alongside Hope, and serves as an immediate admission that the two albums are going to be very different.
The cover art is a stark contrast to the simple black-and-white, text-only cover of Cope. Musically, the songs are re-arranged, sometimes transposed to other instruments, shaken up and moved around, sometimes all but unrecognizable. Lyrically, some songs are word-for-word the same, and others have kept hardly anything intact. Most of the songs are now quiet, stripped-down and acoustic, but Hope still has some curveballs to throw. Hope is a re-imagining of their previous album, Cope. One of my favorite bands, Manchester Orchestra, did just that in September, when they suddenly and immediately released a new album called Hope. Still, now and then an artist finds a new way to shake things up, if even for a moment. In this world of streaming music, digital downloads, physical copies becoming collector’s items, and bands touring nearly nonstop to compensate, it often feels like surprises are hard to come by. In the meantime, here’s a nowListening post I’ve been meaning to get to.
I’m almost finished with that, and you can follow my progress here: Hey guys! I haven’t posted here in a while I’ve been pretty busy with my NaNoWriMo project.
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