Lively rocker McMahon anything but a mannequin

The Glass Passenger Jack’s Mannequin Sire Records Rocks like: Vintage Something Corporate B-… The Glass Passenger Jack’s Mannequin Sire Records Rocks like: Vintage Something Corporate B- Imagine a reunion with a friend you haven’t seen for three years who has come back disappointingly different and reassuringly the same at the same time. If this meeting could be encapsulated in a soundtrack, it would be Jack’s Mannequin’s long awaited new album, The Glass Passenger. Andrew McMahon provides the band with his signature piano-rock and vocals, in addition to writing all the songs. Bobby ‘Raw’ Anderson plays guitar and supplies backup vocals, while Jonathan Sullivan is on bass and Jay McMillan is on drums.’ The then 22-year-old McMahon was diagnosed with leukemia in June of 2005, tragically and ironically on the day he finished the last song for Jack’s Mannequin’s first album, Everything in Transit. The album was released two months later, debuting at No. 37 on Billboard’s Top 200 Albums and embraced by both fans of McMahon’s previous work and critics alike. Lyrically, The Glass Passenger is somewhat less than one has come to expect from McMahon, in addition to the distraction of complex overlays and shimmery studio effects ‘mdash; a shame considering that some of the band’s best tracks are simple acoustic versions. McMahon transitioned into a more confessional, less elegiac style after his departure from the band Something Corporate, and this album continues that trend to less than stellar results. While his hooks and melodies have always been excellent, what distinguished McMahon was the intertwining of his intense piano composition skills with beautiful lyrics, typically both simultaneously precise and vague enough to feel like they could apply to anyone’s life. ‘Crashin” will be most familiar to fans both thematically and in terms of sound. ‘Swim’ is an ode to endurance (‘Swim for your life / Swim for the music that saves you / When you’re not so sure you’ll survive’), sure to become an anthem of the early teen set. ‘Hammers and Strings: A Lullaby,’ a sort of love song to McMahon’s favorite Baldwin piano, could be compared to Something Corporate’s ‘Konstantine’ both in terms of emotional intensity and non-sequitor lyrics that somehow cohere. ‘ While still an enjoyable listen and certainly worth purchasing for hardcore fans, The Glass Passenger is not the messiah of alternative music some will hail it as, nor the best introduction for newcomers to Andrew McMahon’s considerable talents.