Manchester Orchestra have spent over two decades building one of the most emotionally demanding catalogs in rock, and ‘Union Chapel, London, England’ finds them doing something genuinely unexpected with it. The 21-track live album, out now via Loma Vista Recordings, was recorded during a sold-out three-night residency at London’s historic Union Chapel in fall 2023, and it reframes the band’s music entirely, stripping the songs back to voice, strings, and the resonance of gothic chapel walls.
What Andy Hull and Robert McDowell have created here is liturgical in the truest sense. Hull’s vocals, always the band’s most powerful instrument, have nowhere to hide in this setting, and he doesn’t try. The rendition of “The Grocery” alone, pulled from 2017’s ‘A Black Mile To The Surface’, is a breathtaking piece of work, a vocal performance Pitchfork-praised material reborn in a completely new context. Paste got it right: “Manchester Orchestra’s dynamism is made for echoing concert halls.”
Hull reflects on London’s place in the band’s history with real feeling: “The town has become a kind of canon in our lives. A way to compare past with present.” The residency drew from across their entire catalog, touching ‘Mean Everything to Nothing’ (2009), ‘The Million Masks of God’ (2021), and ‘The Valley of Vision’ (2023). The result is a rare document of a band in genuine dialogue with their own past.
The album is available on 2LP vinyl in translucent Sea Blue (retail) or opaque Silver (artist store and tour), and in 2xCD format with an 8-page roll-fold booklet. Hull took the material on a solo US tour this spring, with multiple dates selling out, including both Chicago nights at Old Town School of Folk Music, New York’s Le Poisson Rouge, and Boston’s City Winery.
Tracklist:
Intro (Union Chapel, London, England)
I Know How To Speak (Union Chapel, London, England)
The Grocery (Union Chapel, London, England)
The Maze (Union Chapel, London, England)
The Gold (Union Chapel, London, England)
Deer (Union Chapel, London, England)
Angel of Death (Union Chapel, London, England)
I Can Barely Breathe (Union Chapel, London, England)
Capital Karma (Union Chapel, London, England)
The Way (Union Chapel, London, England)
The River (Union Chapel, London, England)
Telepath (Union Chapel, London, England)
Simple Math (Union Chapel, London, England)
I Can Feel A Hot One (Union Chapel, London, England)
Cope (Union Chapel, London, England)
Colly Strings (Union Chapel, London, England)
My Backwards Walk (Union Chapel, London, England)
Interlude (Union Chapel, London, England)
Rear View (Union Chapel, London, England)
Bed Head (Union Chapel, London, England)
The Silence (Union Chapel, London, England)