Jack’s Mannequin

“The Resolution“
from the album The Glass Passenger
2008
iTunes

It’s easy to root for The Glass Passenger, the second album from Jack’s Mannequin and first since frontman Andrew McMahon was diagnosed with and subsequently cured of leukemia, to be good. Luckily, the band held up its considerably more difficult end of the bargain, creating a passionate, soaring collection of piano-pop that’s solid, memorable and, at times, undeniably fantastic.

Like “American Love,” a portrait of reckless romance that builds into the chorus, “Big hearts are for breakin’,” a sing-along moment that would make Bon Jovi proud. Or “Drop Out,” a piano-pounding, heart-spiller that plays like a nod to “The Boss,” himself. But it’s the moments in which McMahon seems to offer a window into his emotional struggle with cancer that are the best and, perhaps, most important. Like on “The Resolution,“ when over cascading piano and a relentless backbeat he declares, “I’m alive, and I don’t need a witness to know I survived.”

Upon listening to McMahon fervently commanding, “Swim for the music that saves you when you’re not so sure you’ll survive” (“Swim”), it becomes clear that McMahon’s message of healing, set alternatively to toe-tappers and tear-jerkers, might just be bigger than the music itself.